fTHEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY,| 
^  Princeton,  N.  J.   ^    "*-'  ^"' 


^=.,^ej 


BX  9178  .B6  L44 

18A4         5 

Boardman,  Henry 

A.  1808- 

1880. 

The  intolerance 

of  the 

Church  of  Rome 

THE 


INTOLERANCE 


CHUECH   OF   ROME 


BY  H.  A.  BOARDMAN,  D.D. 

Pastor  of  the  Tenth  Presbyterian  Church,  Philadelphia. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
PRESBYTERIAN   BOARD   OF   PUBLICATION. 

PAUL  T.  JONES,  PUBLISHING  AGENT. 

1844. 


Entered  according  to  the  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year 
1844,  by  A.  W.  Mitchell,  M.  D.,  in  the  office  of  the 
Clerk  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Eastern  District  of 
Pennsylvania. 


Printed  by 

WILLIAM  8.  MARTlElf. 


EXTRACT  FROM  THE  MINUTES  OF  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY  OF 
THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF 
AMERICA. 

Louisville,  Ky.,  May  27, 1844. 
On  motion,  it  was  unanimously  Resolved,  That  the 
thanks  of  the  Assembly  be  returned  to  the  Rev.  Henry  A. 
Boardman  for  his  Sermon  on  the  "  Intolerance  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,"  and  that  he  be  requested  to  furnish  a 
copy  of  it  to  the  Board  of  Publication. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  Author  was  appointed  by  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  of 
1842,  and,  having  been  prevented  by  sick- 
ness from  fulfiUing  the  duty,  re-appointed 
by  the  Assembly  of  1843,  to  preach  the  year 
following,  the  Annual  Sermon  on  Popery. 
"  The  Intolerance  of  the  Church  of  Rome," 
was  assigned  as  the  specific  subject  of  the 
discourse.  The  sermon  was  accordingly 
preached  before  the  General  Assembly  of 
1844,  at  Louisville,  Ky.,  and  the  substance 
of  it  is  contained  in  the  present  volume. 


THE  INTOLERANCE 


CHURCH    OF    ROME. 


Ir  was  a  remark  of  the  late  Mr.  Cecil's,  that 
"  the  system  of  Popery  was  Sataii^s  master- 
piece.^^ The  observation  will  commend  itself 
to  the  judgment  of  every  enlightened  and  can- 
did man,  who  sits  down  to  examine  the  great 
apostasy.  The  further  a  man  of  this  charac- 
ter pursues  his  inquiries,  the  more  will  he 
wonder  that  such  a  system  should  have  suc- 
ceeded in  palming  itself  upon  the  world  for 
Christianity.  Nor  will  any  hypothesis  solve 
this  mystery,  but  that  which  assumes  the  in- 
sidious and  potent  agency  of  the  arch-apos- 
tate, both  in  fabricating  the  mighty  cheat,  and 
in  giving  it  currency. 

This  view  of  the  origin  of  Popery,  is  not 
a  mere  speculation  j  for  the  apostle  Paul  de- 


6  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

clares  that  the  coming  of  the  "  Man  of  Sin'' 
should  be  "  after  the  working  of  Satan.'' 

Satan  was  foiled  in  his  assaults  upon  the 
Son  of  God.  The  temptations  with  which 
he  approached  him  at  the  commencement  of 
his  public  ministryj  resulted  in  his  own  signal 
discomfiture.  Three  years  later  he  succeed- 
ed in  inducing  Judas  to  betray  him;  but  he 
found  that  in  plotting  the  death  of  Christ,  he 
had  taken  the  surest  method  to  subvert  his 
own  usurped  dominion.  Nothing  disheart- 
ened, however,  by  the  resurrection  of  the 
Redeemer,  the  effusion  of  the  Spirit,  and  the 
other  great  events  which  betokened  the  rapid 
spread  of  the  gospel,  he  seems  to  have  re- 
solved upon  revenging  himself  in  a  manner, 
and  upon  a  scale,  worthy  of  his  exalted  rank 
and  unmitigated  malignity.  Peradventure 
Christianity  may  be  overthrown.  He  will 
first  try,  therefore,  the  efficacy  of  persecution. 
If  he  fails  in  this,  he  has  a  surer  alternative 
remaining,  corruption.  In  both  schemes,  the 
kings  of  the  earth  shall  be  his  instruments. 
He  will  incite  them  to  extirpate  the  church. 
If  they  are  repulsed,  he  will  stir  them  up  to 
embrace  and  caress  it.  His  chief  hope  is 
from  the  latter  of  these  expedients.  He  relies 
more  upon  subtlety  than  force.     With  the 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME,  7 

civil  power,  therefore,  he  joins  the  ecclesias- 
tic. The  ministers  of  religion  must  unite 
with  crowned  heads  in  despoiling  religion  of 
its  chief  glory — in  secretly  transubstantiating 
Christianity  into  a  baptized  paganism.  This 
was  the  end  he  aimed  at,  and  these  were  his 
chosen  agents  for  effecting  it.  How  early  he 
commenced  his  work,  is  manifest  from  seve- 
ral of  the  Epistles.  Before  the  apostles  had 
finished  their  course,  the  evidence  was  before 
their  eyes  that  some  master  hand  was  coun- 
tervailing their  labours.  Nay,  they  foresaw 
with  sadness  of  heart,  that  the  infant  churches 
were  soon  to  be  overrun  with  false  teachers, 
and  that  a  grievous  "  falling  away"  from  the 
true  faith  would  take  place  at  an  early  day. 
Thus  the  apostle  Peter,  in  his  Second  Epistle, 
says,  "  There  were  false  prophets  also  among 
the  people,  even  as  there  shall  be  false  teach- 
ers among  you,  who  privily  shall  bring  in 
damnable  heresies,  even  denying  the  Lord 
that  bought  them."  Paul  uses  similar  lan- 
guage in  a  number  of  instances:  and  in  two 
memorable  passages,  he  predicts  and  deline- 
ates the  approaching  apostasy,  with  singular 
minuteness.  These  passages  are  1  Tim.  iv. 
1 — 3,  and  2  Thess.  ii.  1 — 10.  Even  while 
he  wrote,  the  seeds  of  error  were  sowing. 


8  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

"The  mystery  of  iniquity  doth  already  work.'^ 
That  same  mystery  has  been  *' working" 
ever  since.  The  embryo  monster  developed 
itself  by  degrees  after  the  apostles  were  gone, 
until  at  length  it  stood  before  the  world,  its 
gigantic  proportions  so  complete,  its  form  so 
symmetrical,  its  aspect  so  bland,  that  the  na- 
tions flocked  around  it,  believing  it  to  be  in 
truth  what  it  claimed  to  be,  the  very  "body 
of  Christ,"  the  Church  which  he  came  to 
ransom  with  his  blood.  With  a  craft  and 
energy  peculiar  to  himself,  Satan  displaced 
one  by  one  the  pure  doctrines  of  the  gospel, 
and  substituted  figments  of  his  own  in  their 
stead.  Transforming  himself  into  an  angel 
of  light,  he  transformed  the  church,  or  a  large 
division  of  it,  into  an  engine  of  wickedness ; 
abstracting,  modifying,  augmenting,  accord- 
ing as  its  several  parts  required,  in  carry- 
ing out  his  plan.  He  left  nothing  as  it  came 
from  the  hands  of  Christ  and  the  apostles. 
He  remodelled  its  external  form  and  organi- 
zation— changed  the  nature  and  functions  of 
the  ministry — created  ecclesiastical  orders  un- 
known to  the  word  of  God — and  muliiplied 
rites  and  ordinances  without  limit.  He  robbed 
Christ  of  his  three  mediatorial  offices,  and 
gave  them  to  the  Pope — leaving  to  Christ, 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  9 

indeed,  the  names  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King, 
but  transferring  the  functions  and  powers 
denoted  by  these  titles,  to  the  bishop  of  Rome. 
He  left  in  the  theology  of  the  church,  the 
words  atonement,  justification,  regeneration, 
sanctification,  faith,  repentance,  prayer,  and 
the  hke ;  but  took  away  the  things  themselves. 
He  next  applied  his  subtle  alchemy  to  the 
spirit  of  the  church,  which,  from  being  a 
spirit  of  love,  and  gentleness,  and  humility, 
was  transmuted  into  a  spirit  of  arrogance, 
ambition,  and  cruelty.  In  fine,  the  change 
he  wrought  in  the  western  church,  resembled 
more  than  any  thing  else  the  ossification  of 
some  vital  organ  of  the  body — so  thorough 
was  the  transformation  and  so  tranquilly  was 
it  accompUshed. 

All  this  will  the  more  fully  appear  on  a 
closer  inspection  of  that  particular  feature 
of  the  Papal  system,  to  an  examination  of 
which  these  pages  are  to  be  devoted,  viz.  its 
Intolerance. 

In  that  prophetic  portraiture  of  the  great 
antichrist,  which  the  Protestant  world  are 
agreed  in  appropriating  to  the  Church  or 
Rome,  this  feature  occupies  a  conspicuous 
place.  Thus  Daniel  (chap.  vii.  25,)  says, 
^'  And  he  shall  speak  great  words  against  the 
2 


10  THE  INTOLERANCE    OP 

Most  High,  and  shall  wear  out  the  saints  of 
the  Most  High.'^  And  the  apostle  John, 
writing  more  than  six  hundred  years  later, 
says  of  the  same  power,  "  I  saw  the  woman 
drunken  with  the  blood  of  the  saints,  and 
with  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  of  Jesus.'' 

The  charge  of  intolerance  might  be  estab- 
hshed  against  the  Church  of  Rome,  by  simply 
recapitulating  the  barbarities  practised  by  her 
against  the  Waldenses,  the  Huguenots,  and 
the  Protestants  of  various  countries.  But  her 
apologists  would  still  plead  that  those  perse- 
cutions belonged  rather  to  the  age  or  the  in- 
dividuals than  to  the  church,  and  that  she 
ought  not  to  be  held  responsible  for  them. 
This  plea  must  be  met.  And  it  will  be  met 
if  it  can  be  shown  that  intolerance  enters 

RADICALLY     INTO     THE    VERY     ELEMENTS    OF 

THE  PAPAL  SYSTEM — that  it  is  thoroughly  and 
essentially  intolerant  in  its  principles — so  that 
persecution,  instead  of  being  a  mere  accident 
of  it,  flows  from  it  as  naturally  as  light  from 
the  sun.  This  position  I  shall  endeavour  to 
establish. 

According  to  the  theory  of  Romanism,  the 
spiritual  interests  of  mankind  are  committed 
to  the  guardianship  and  control  of  the  Church 
of  Rome,  whose  bishop  for  the  time  being,  is 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  11 

the  vicar  of  Jesus  Christ.  That  church  is 
the  depositary  of  the  Scriptures;  the  only- 
medium  of  acceptable  worship;  and  the  only 
channel  of  salvation.  The  plenitude  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  abides  with  her.  Her  decisions 
on  all  questions  of  faith  and  morals  are  in-' 
fallible.  All  men  are  bound  to  submit  to  her 
authority,  on  pain  of  eternal  banishment  from 
God's  presence.  She  is  at  liberty  to  adopt 
any  measures  which  in  her  judgvient  may 
he  expedient  for  vindicating  the  truth  (the 
sacred  deposit  confided  to  her^)  or  pro- 
moting the  salvation  of  men's  souls.  And 
she  is  clothed  with  jurisdiction  even  over  the 
temporal  affairs  of  men,  to  the  full  extent 
that  she  may  deem  it  wise  to  exercise  it  in 
enforcing  her  spiritual  claims.  These  pro- 
positions have  their  elucidation  in  the  rivers 
of  blood  which  papal  Rome  has  made  to  flow 
in  the  name  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  If  we 
sanction  her  pretensions,  we  cannot  consist- 
ently rebuke  her  cruelties:  we  must  at  least 
acknowledge  that  her  theory  and  practice  are 
accordant,  the  one  with  the  other.  For  (as 
a  very  able  modern  writer  has  observed) 
"the  papal  authority  is  distinguished  from 
all  others  on  earth,  by  being  a  supernatural 
authority;  and  therefore  it  may  boldly  pur- 


12  THE    INTOLERANCE    OP 

sue  its  ends  and  fulfil  its  duty,  as  guardian  of 
truth,  without  scruple,  hesitation,  or  any  weak 
and  wavering  regard  to  considerations  of 
mercy.  Upon  all  those  occasions  when  the 
frailty  of  the  human  heart  might  make  the 
chastising  hand  of  authority  to  tremble,  re- 
currence is  to  be  had  to  that  prime  principle 
—the  supreme  and  infinite  importance  of 
religion:  but  religion  cannot  exist  apart  from 
the  truth,  which  is  its  basis.  Truth,  then, 
must  be  preserved  and  defended,  at  whatever 
cost.  Better,  if  necessary,  or  if  no  milder 
remedy  can  avail,  better  that  some  hundred 
thousand  heretics  should  perish  in  the  flames, 
than  that  heresy  itself — immortal  poison  as 
it  is — should  be  permitted  to  infect  the  souls 
of  men  at  large.  Better  that  an  heretical 
prince  should  be  deposed,  his  kingdom  placed 
under  an  interdict,  and  wasted,  year  after 
year,  by  bands  of  faithful  crusaders,  than 
that  Christendom  should  be  exposed  to  a 
fast-spreading  contagion  which  carries  eter- 
nal death  in  its  train. 

"  Not  only  may  the  Church  resort  to  these 
or  to  any  other  extreme  means  for  preserving 
the  truth;  but  she  is  bound  to  do  so;  she  has 
no  choice;  to  profess  principles  of  toleration, 
in  subserviency  to  the  lax  notions  of  modern 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  13 

times,  would  be,  on  her  part,  to  forfeit  con- 
sistency, and  in  the  most  fatal  and  traitorous 
manner  to  abandon  the  high  ground  on  which 
her  authority  is  reared. 

"  The  duty  of  using  the  most  extreme  means 
for  the  preservation  of  the  truth,  or  in  com- 
mon Protestant  parlance,  the  practice  of  per- 
secution, is  a  necessary  element  of  this  church 
theory.  Without  it,  there  is  no  longer  har- 
mony in  the  scheme,  consistency  in  the  pro- 
fessions of  its  supporters,  safety  to  the  insti- 
tution, nor  any  probability  of  its  extension."^ 

That  this  reasoning  proceeds  upon  a  fair 
interpretation  of  the  principles  of  Poperj^, 
will  be  evident,  if  we  take  a  somewhat  near- 
er view  of  the  system. 

In  the  first  place — and  we  urge  it  as  a 
prime  argument  in  proof  of  the  intolerance 
of  the  system — the  Church  of  Rome  denies 
the  right  of  private  judgment  in  matters  of 
faith  and  morals, 

*^The  Catholic  Church  (says  Dr.  Milner, 
in  his  '  End  of  Controversy,')  is  the  divinely 
commissioned  guardian  and  interpreter  of  the 
word  of  God;  and  therefore  the  method  ap- 
pointed by  Christ,  for  learning  what  he  has 

*  Spiritual  Despotism,  pp.  237,  8. 


14  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

taught  on  the  various  articles  of  his  religion, 
is  to  hear  the  Chi(.rch  propounding  them." 
"  Thus  you  have  only  to  hear,"  he  proceeds, 
"  what  the  Church  teaches  upon  the  several 
articles  of  her  faith,  in  order  to  know  with 
certainty  what  God  has  revealed  concerning 
them."  The  Council  of  Trent,  having  an- 
athematized all  who  reject  the  apocrypha  and 
unwritten  traditions  as  destitute  of  canonical 
authority,  decrees  that  no  one,  "  confiding  in 
his  own  judgment,  shall"  under  penalty  of 
anathema,  *•'  dare  to  wrest  the  sacred  Scrip- 
tures to  his  own  sense  of  them,  contrary  to 
that  which  hath  been  held  and  still  is  held  by 
holy  mother  Church,  whose  right  it  is  to  judge 
of  the  true  meaning  and  interpretation  of  Sa- 
cred Writ;  or  contrary  to  the  unanimous  con- 
sent of  the  fathers — even  though  such  inter- 
pretations should  never  be  published." 

Even  these  provisions,  however,  were 
deemed  inadequate  to  guard  the  Scriptures 
from  perversion.  Nothing  will  answer  but 
the  Bible  must  be  taken  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  people.  The  Congregation  of  the  Index, 
therefore,  having  affirmed  that  the  "indis- 
criminate use"  of  the  Scriptures  will  produce 
"  more  evil  than  good,"  direct  that  no  indi- 
vidual shall  publish,  circulate,  own,  or  read* 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  15 

the  Bible,  without  permission  obtained  "  in 
writing"  from  his  bishop  or  inquisitor. 

Still  Rome  is  not  satisfied.  If  men  are  cut 
off  from  the  Bible,  they  may  read  something 
else.  Not  only  the  sun  must  be  put  out,  but 
the  stars.  The  Church  stretches  her  iron  rod 
over  the  whole  field  of  literature.  She  col- 
lects together  the  noblest  works  in  every  lan- 
guage, published  since  the  revival  of  letters, 
and  locks  them  up  in  a  Prohibitory  Index, 
sealed  with  her  own  terrible  anathema. 
While  another  very  large  class  of  works, 
including  the  Christian  Fathers,  which  she 
cannot  afford  to  dispeuvse  with  entirel}'",  are 
enrolled  in  an  Index  Expurgatorius — i.  e.  an 
index  that  prescribes  the  passages  which  are 
to  be  expunged  or  modified,  before  the  books 
can  be  safely  circulated. 

In  this  way  Rome  claims  the  right  to  con- 
trol the  reading  of  the  world.  No  man, 
such  is  her  theory,  may  lawfully  peruse  any 
book  which  she  has  put  under  ban,  without 
a  dispensation.  All  works  on  the  contro- 
versy between  Romanists  and  Protestants, 
by  whomsoever  written,  are  prohibited.  So 
also  the  writings  of  Romanists  in  controversy 
with  one  another,  whenever  they  may  be 
adapted  to  open  the  eyes  of  the  people  to  the 


16  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

true  character  of  the  system.  In  illustration 
of  this,  and  as  a  proof  that  this  country  is  not 
exempted  from  the  operation  of  these  rules, 
it  may  be  mentioned,  that  one  of  the  last  edi- 
tions of  the  Roman  Index,  under  date  of  Sep- 
tember 6,  1822,  includes  the  various  pamph- 
lets published  in  the  course  of  the  famous 
feud  in  St.  Mary's  church,  in  the  city  of 
Philadelphia,  some  twenty  or  twenty-five 
years  ago.*  No  Roman  Catholic,  even  in 
this  free  country,  is  at  liberty  to  read  one  of 
those  pamphlets,  without  permission  of  his 
bishop.  The  same  may  be  said  respecting 
Prof.  Ranke's  History  of  the  Popes,  published 
three  or  four  years  ago  in  Berlin,  and  since 
republished  in  England  and  the  United  States. 
That  work  was  scarcely  through  the  press, 
before  it  was  enrolled  in  the  Prohibitory  In- 
dex. Even  the  British  Classics  have  not  es- 
caped. Milton,  Cowper,  Addison,  and  their 
compeers,  have  the  honour  to  be  registered 
in  the  same  catalogue  with  the  illustrious 
Reformers  of  Britain  and  the  continent. 

We  have  not  yet  reached  the  limits  of 
Papal  despotism.  Other  tyrants  are  satisfied 
with  incarcerating  the  bodies  of  their  victims. 

*  Mendham's  Literary  Policy  of  the  Ciiurch  of  Rome, 
second  edition,  p.  265. 


THE    CHURCH    OP    ROME.  17 

Rome  binds  her  fetters  upon  the  intellect,  and 
strikes  her  iron  into  the  soul.  She  not  only 
removes  as  far  as  possible  from  the  people 
the  means  of  knowledge,  and  discourages 
investigation,  but  establishes  an  inquisition 
in  every  man^s  breast,  and  challenges  juris- 
diction over  his  thoughts.  A  Romanist,  if  he 
is  so  fortunate  as  to  obtain  leave  to  read  the 
Bible,  cannot  interpret  it  for  himself.  He 
must  receive  every  sentence  as  the  Church 
expounds  it,  and  agreeably  to  that  theologi- 
cal nonentity,  the  "  consent  of  all  the  fathers." 
"  The  whole  right  to  the  Scriptures  (says  Mil- 
ner)  belongs  to  the  Church.  She  has  pre- 
served them;  she  vouches  for  them;  and  she 
alone,  by  comparing  the  several  passages 
with  each  other,  and  with  tradition,  authori- 
tatively explains  them.  Hence  it  is  impossi- 
ble that  the  real  sense  of  Scripture  should 
ever  be  against  her  and  her  doctrines;  and 
hence,  of  course,  I  might  quash  every  objec- 
tion which  you  can  draw  from  every  passage 
in  it,  by  this  short  reply:  '  The  Church  under- 
stands the  passage  differently  from  you;  there- 
fore you  mistake  its  meaning.' ''  This  is  the 
liberty  of  thought  allowed  by  the  Papal 
Hierarchy.  A  Popish  priest  may  quash 
every  objection  which  you  can  draw  from 


18  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

the  word  of  God,  not  by  dint  of  argument, 
not  by  pointing  out  the  unsoundness  of  your 
principles  of  interpretation,  not  by  exposing 
the  errors  of  your  exegesis,  but  by  simply  tell- 
ing you,  "  The  Church  understands  the  pas- 
sage differently;  therefore  you  are  wrong."  I 
stop  not  now  to  comment  on  the  absurdity  of 
any  Romish  ecclesiastic's  undertaking  to  pro- 
nounce, ex  cathedra,  how  "  the  Church"  (all 
the  fathers  included)  understands  every  pas- 
sage of  Scripture;  but  I  would  call  the  atten- 
tion of  the  reader  to  the  intolerance  involved 
in  the  principle  here  asserted.  Men  have  no 
right  to  think,  in  studying  the  Scriptures,  ex- 
cept in  the  hue  of  the  Church.  And  if  they  hap- 
pen, in  the  exercise  of  their  rational  powers,  to 
diverge  from  this  line,  they  are  to  be  brought 
back,  not  by  argument,  but  by  authority;  not 
by  being  instructed  and  reasoned  with,  but 
by  being  told,  *^The  Church  has  decided 
otherwise:  bow  to  her  decision,  or  take  the 
consequences."  What  these  consequences 
are,  we  shall  see  by  and  by.  The  point  to 
be  noted  here,  is,  that  "  the  Church"  thrusts 
herself  in  between  man  and  his  God,  and 
claims  to  exercise  the  authority  of  God  over 
him.  The  Pope  "opposeth  and  exalteth  him- 
self above  all  that  is  called  God,  or  that  is 


THE    CHURCH    OP    ROME.  19 

worshipped;  so  that  he, as  God,sitteth  m  the 
temple  of  God,  showing  himself  that  he  is 
God/'  It  is  not  God  vviio  speaks  to  the  Ro- 
manist, in  the  Bible;  but  the  Church.  We 
have  no  right  to  hear  God  speak,  except 
through  the  Church.  We  sin  if  we  even 
think  that  he  says  any  thing  else  to  us,  than 
what  the  Church  tells  us  he  says.  We  must 
believe  that  when  we  "  hear  the  Church,"  we 
hear  God,  although  the  Church  may  utter 
what  insults  our  reason  and  belies  every  one 
of  our  senses. 

This,  it  will  be  admitted,  is  a  tolerably 
refined  tyranny.  But  there  is  one  link  want- 
ing to  make  the  chain  complete.  "  You  have 
proved,''  it  may  be  said, "  that  the  Church  of 
Rome  allows  no  liberty  of  thought:  but  are 
not  a  man's  thoughts  his  own?  may  I  not 
cherish  what  opinions  I  choose,  by  keeping 
them  to  myself?"  I  might  answer,  that  opin- 
ions, and  especially  opinions  in  religion,  are 
of  little  value,  unless  we  are  left  free  to  act 
upon  them.  But  it  is  more  to  my  purpose, 
in  delineating  the  intolerance  of  this  system, 
to  state,  that  the  Romish  Church  does  not 
permit  men  to  "  keep  their  opinions  to  them- 
selves.^^ As  if  to  silence  all  doubt  of  her  iden- 
tity with  the  "man  of  sin,"  self-enthroned  in 


20  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

God's  temple,  she  claims  the  prerogative  of 
searching  the  heart.  Men  are  dragged  to  the 
confessional,  and  there  compelled,  under  pain 
of  anathema,-  to  disclose  the  secrets  of  their 
hearts  to  a  priest.  This  priest  may  at  the 
time  "  be  living  in  mortal  sin,^'  and  yet  he  is 
competent  (so  the  Comicil  of  Trent  declares) 
"  to  exercise  the  function  of  forgiving  sins, 
as  the  Minister  of  Christ:"  nay,  in  him  (adds 
the  catechism  of  the  Council  of  Trent,)  "  the 
penitent  venerates  the  power  and  person  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  for  in  the  administra- 
tion of  this,  as  well  as  of  other  sacraments, 
the  priest  represents  the  character  and  per- 
forms the  functions  of  Jesus  Christ."  It  is 
only  necessary  to  examine  some  standard 
Popish  author,  like  Peter  Dens,  or  even  a 
Popish  Missal  or  Prayer  Book,  to  see  how 
inquisitorial  is  the  scrutiny  to  which  the 
bosoms  of  men  are  subjected  at  the  confes- 
sional. Not  merely  their  actions  and  words, 
their  formal  plans  and  habitual  purposes  are 
made  to  pass  in  review  before  the  priest;  but 
his  eye  is  permitted  to  explore  the  deepest 
recesses  of  the  heart,  and  its  transient  impres- 
sions and  emotions  are  poured  into  his  ear ; 
and  that,  although  the  priest  may  be  a  de- 
bauchee, and  the  penitent  a  youthful  and 


THE    CHURCH    OP    ROME.  21 

modest  female !  It  is  a  fundamental  principle 
with  Rome,  that  men  shall  not  only  acknow- 
ledge her  authority,  and  conform  to  her  rites, 
but  THINK  as  she  thinks.  Her  empire  is  co- 
extensive with  the  workings  of  the  human 
mind.  Her  censorship  of  the  press,  is  but  a 
type  of  her  censorship  of  men's  lips  and 
hearts.  And  the  tribunal  we  have  just  been 
contemplating,  is  the  mighty  engine  by  which 
she  promptly  detects  incipient  treason  in  any 
part  of  her  vast  realm.  Incompetent  to  di- 
vine the  secret  thoughts  and  opinions  of  men, 
and  equally  unable  to  ascertain  them  by  tes- 
timony, she  hangs  up  before  her  poor,  trem- 
bling subjects,  the  terrors  of  an  endless  retri- 
bution, and  compels  them  to  unveil  their 
bosoms  to  her  eye.  The  world  cannot  fur- 
nish a  second  example  of  so  thorough  and 
inexorable  a  despotism. 

The  practical  operation  of  this  principle 
might  be  illustrated  by  appealing  to  the 
condition  of  every  country  in  which  it  has 
an  undisputed  predominance.  The  mass  of 
the  people  in  those  countries  are  little  else 
than  mere  machines  in  the  hands  of  an  un- 
principled priesthood.  Sunk  in  ignorance 
and  superstition,  they  have  no  just  ideas  of 
their  civil  rights,  of  religion,  or  of  the  Supreme 


22  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

Being.  Indeed,  their  religion  differs  from 
that  of  the  heathen  mainly  in  bearing  the 
name  of  Christianity;  and  their  altars,  like 
that  which  the  apostle  saw  at  Athens,  might 
fitly  bear  the  inscription,  "  To  the  Unknown 
God." 

I  leave  these  details,  however,  to  advance 
another  step  in  depicting  the  intolerance  of 
the  system.  It  has  been  shown  that  the 
Church  of  Rome  not  only  forbids  men  to 
read  the  Scriptures  or  other  books,  without 
her  permission,  but  denies  their  right  to  hold 
any  opinions  not  accordant  with  her  own; 
and  that  she  claims  the  right  to  look  into  their 
breasts  as  often  as  she  may  see  fit,  and  know 
precisely  what  they  do  believe.  This  would 
be  a  monstrous  tyranny,  even  if  that  faith 
and  discipline  to  which  she  exacts  so  rigid  a 
conformity,  were  sanctioned  by  the  word  of 
God.  But  what  words  can  express  its  enor- 
mity, when  it  is  considered  that  darkness  and 
hght  are  scarcely  more  at  variance  than  the 
system  she  seeks  to  impose  upon  men's  con- 
sciences, and  the  sacred  Scriptures.  It  were 
some  mitigation  of  her  impiety,  if  her  intol- 
erance were  directed  against  error  and  vice: 
but  the  thing  she  mainly  abhors,  and  for  the 
destruction  of  which  she  puts  forth  her  craft 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  23 

and  power,  is  God's  own  holy  and  precious 
TRUTH.  It  is  her  hatred  and  intolerance  of 
THE  TRUTH,  that  shapcs  and  directs  every 
part  of  the  policy  we  have  been  considering. 
She  has  never  manifested  a  tithe  of  the  indig- 
nation against  the  shameless  vices  of  her  own 
ecclesiastics,  that  she  has  against  the  "  truth 
as  it  is  in  Jesus.''  The  fact  is  notorious,  that 
she  traffics  in  crimes  as  men  traffic  in  mer- 
chandize. In  the  famous  "  tax  books  of  the 
Roman  Chancery,"  pubhshed  before  the  light 
of  the  Reformation  was  diffused  over  Europe, 
and  of  which,  according  to  Dr.  Merle,*  ^'more 
than  forty  editions  are  extant,"  crimes  were 
arranged  upon  a  graduated  scale,  with  the 
price  of  absolution  affixed  to  each,  so  that 
an  individual  could  know  just  what  the  per- 
petration of  any  particular  crime  would  cost 
him.  This  spiritual  tariff  varied  in  different 
countries,  and  in  different  editions  of  the 
work.  In  the  Paris  edition  of  1520,  these 
duties  are  imposed : — "  For  perjury,  six  gross : 
for  killing  a  layman,  five  gross:  ditto  an  ec- 
clesiastic, from  seven  to  nine:  for  him  who 
kills  his  father,  mother,  or  other  relative,  five 
to  seven:  for  bigamy,  ten:  incest,  five."  In  a 

*  Vide  History  of  the  Reformation,  vol.  i.  p.  38. 


24  THE    INTOLERANCE    OP 

manuscript  copy  in  the  British  Museum, 
"approved  by  Leo  X.''  A.  D.  1520,  the  scale 
of  duties  is  much  higher ;  e.  g.  simony,  one 
hundred  and  two  gross ;  perjury,  two  hundred 
and  two;  incest,  one  hundred  and  two;  adul- 
tery by  a  priest,  one  hundred  and  two.  It 
was  this  wholesale  traffic  in  sins  by  the 
Church,  that  had  so  powerful  an  influence 
upon  Luther's  mind,  and  led  on  ultimately 
to  the  Reformation.  The  same  traffic  she 
carries  on  still:  for  the  indulgence-mongers 
of  our  day,  differ  from  Tetzel  and  his  asso- 
ciates, only  in  transacting  the  business  in  a 
less  revolting  form. 

No  such  lenity,  however,  is  displayed  to- 
ward the  truth.  The  Church  of  Rome,  claim- 
ing a  supreme  legislative  as  well  as  executive 
authority,  has,  in  the  first  place,  substituted 
dogmas  of  her  own,  for  most  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  Bible,  and  then  superadded  a  great 
mass  of  laws  and  ordinances,  unknown  to 
the  Scriptures.  This  system,  which  bears 
upon  its  front  the  impress  of  the  father  of 
lies,  she  requires  every  human  being  to  em- 
brace, under  penalty  of  anathema.  To  reject 
it,  or  any  part  of  it,  is  heresy :  and  heresy  is, 
in  her  code,  the  unpardonable  sin.  She  will 
compound  with  thieves,  perjurers,  murder- 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  25 

ers,  and  adulterers;  but  she  has  no  mercy 
for  the  man  who  rejects  baptismal  regenera- 
tion, or  denies  that  a  priest  can  transubstan- 
tiate a  bit  of  bread  into  the  "  bloody  the  soul, 
and  the  divinity — in  short,  the  whole  person 
of  Jesus  Christ."  For  such  a  man  there  is 
no  salvation.  The  creed  of  Pius  IV.,  which 
is  received  by  all  Romanists  as  an  accurate 
summary  of  their  faith,  enumerates  {inter 
alia)  "  the  seven  sacraments,  transubstantia- 
tion,  purgatory,  indulgences,  veneration  of 
images,  apostolical  and  ecclesiastical  tradi- 
tions, and  all  other  things  delivered,  defined, 
and  declared  by  the  sacred  canons  and  gene- 
ral councils,"  with  an  anathema  of  ''all  things 
contrary  thereto ;"  and  concludes  thus:  "This 
true  Catholic  faith,  out  of  which  none  can  be 
saved,  which  I  now  freely  profess  and  truly 
hold,  I  promise,  vow,  and  swear,  most  con- 
stantly to  hold."  The  same  doctrine  is  laid 
down  in  the  Doway  Catechism,  as  follows: 
"  Q.  What  is  mortal  sin  ?  A.  It  is  a  wilful 
transgression  in  matter  of  weight  against  any 
known  commandment  of  God,  or  the  church, 
or  of  some  lawful  superior.  Q.  Whither  go 
such  as  die  in  mortal  sin  ?  A.  To  hell  for  all 
eternity."  There  is  an  honesty  and  plump- 
ness about  this  answer,  which  one  cannot 
3 


26  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

but  admire.  The  preceding  answer  con- 
victs the  whole  Protestant  world  of  mortal 
sin;  and  this  one,  without  the  least  com- 
punction or  evasion,  consigns  them,  not  to 
purgatory,  from  which  masses,  well  paid  for, 
might  release  them,  but  "  to  hell  for  all  eter- 
nity." 

But  let  it  not  be  supposed  that  these  are 
isolated  proofs.  The  decrees  of  the  Council 
of  Trent,  and  other  authentic  Popish  docu- 
ments of  similar  authority,  abound  with  an- 
athemas against  some  of  the  fundamental 
truths  of  the  Bible,  and  all  who  embrace 
them.  And  in  the  same  spirit  that  Church 
demands  of  every  man  an  unquestioning  re- 
ception of  the  fables  and  superstitious  prac- 
tices she  has  sought  to  graft  upon  Christian- 
ity. 

"  She  declares,  that  whosoever  does  not 
believe  that  God  is  the  author  of  the  books  of 
Tobit,  Judith,  and  Maccabees,  with  all  their 
falsehood  and  absurdity,  is  accursed.  She  de- 
clares that  whosoever  does  not  believe  ex- 
treme unction,  orders,  and  matrimony,  to  be 
sacraments,  is  accursed.  She  declares,  that 
any  one  who  shall  deny  that  the  eucharist 
contains  really  and  substantially,  the  body 
and  blood,  soul  and  divinity  of  Christ,  is  ac- 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  27 

cursed.  She  declares,  that  any  one  who  shall 
say,  that  the  anoiating  of  the  sick  does  not 
confer  grace,  or  remit  sin,  is  accursed.  She 
declares,  that  any  one  who  shall  say  that 
Christ's  faithful  people  ought  to  receive  both 
species  in  the  sacrament  of  the  Eucharist,  is 
accursed.  She  declares,  that  any  one  who 
shall  say,  that  in  the  mass  there  is  not  offered 
to  God  a  true  and  proper  sacrifice,  is  accursed. 
She  declares,  that  any  one  who  shall  say,  that 
mass  ought  to  be  celebrated  in  the  vulgar 
tongue,  is  accursed.  She  declares,  that  any 
one  who  shall  say,  that  the  clergy  can  law- 
fully contract  marriage,  is  accursed. 

"  These,  and  a  multitude  of  other  matters  of 
greater  or  less  importance,  has  the  Church  of 
Rome  chosen  to  add  to  its  list  of  essential 
truths,  and  so  absolutely  to  insist  on  implicit 
belief,  as  to  send  men  to  the  stake  in  this 
world,  and  to  threaten  them  with  eternal  fire 
in  the  next,  for  the  slightest  failure  in  the  re- 
quired faith."* 

She  even  goes  further  than  this — as,  in- 
deed, in  consistency  she  must  do.  She  not 
only  compels  men  to  receive  her  additions  to 
the  gospel,  but  requires  them  to  reject  many 
of  the  doctrines,  and  disobey  many  of  the 

*  Essays  on  Romanism,  p.  386. 


28  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

precepts  clearly  laid  down  in  the  Scriptures. 
The  famous  Bull  Unigenitus  which  was  is- 
sued by  Clement  XT.  against  the  Jansenists, 
A.  D.  1713,  is  the  last  great  doctrinal  mani- 
festo of  the  Hierarchy.  In  this  document, 
one  hundred  and  one  propositions  drawn 
from  father  Quesnel's  "Moral  Reflections 
on  the  New  Testament,"  are  condemned  as 
"false,  captious,  ill-sounding,  offensive  to 
pious  ears,  scandalous,  pernicious,  rash,  in- 
jurious to  the  church  and  its  practice,  neither 
against  the  church  alone,  but  also  against 
the  secular  power,  contumacious,  seditious, 
impious,  and  blasphemous."  In  a  subse- 
quent paragraph,  "  Patriarchs,  Archbishops, 
Bishops,  and  Inquisitors  of  heretical  pravity" 
are  directed  "  by  all  means  to  coerce  and  com- 
pel gainsayers  and  rebels,  by  censures  and 
punishments,"  "  the  aid  of  the  secular  arm 
being  called  in  for  this  purpose,  if  necessary." 
The  following  is  a  sample  of  the  propositions 
against  which  the  Pope  discharges  this  volley 
of  abuse,  and  whose  advocates  he  threatens 
with  the  civil  sword.* 

Prop.  2.  "  The  grace  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
efficacious  principle  of  good,  of  whatever  kind 

*  Vide  Text-book  of  Popery,  p.  61,  and  McGhee's  Laws 
of  the  Papacy,  p.  215. 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  29 

it  be,  is  necessary  to  every  good  work,  and 
without  it  not  only  nothing  is  done,  but  no- 
thing can  be  done." 

Prop.  14.  "  How  far  remote  soever  an 
obstinate  sinner  may  be  from  safety,  when 
Jesus  exhibits  himself  to  his  view  in  the  salu- 
tary light  of  his  grace,  it  is  fit  that  he  should 
devote  himself,  run  to  him,  humble  himself, 
and  adore  his  Saviour." 

30.  "  All  whom  God  wills  to  save  through 
Christ,  are  infallibly  saved." 

32.  "  Jesus  Christ  delivered  himself  to 
death,  to  deliver  forever  the  first  born  of  his 
own  blood,  that  is,  the  elect,  from  the  hand 
of  the  exterminating  angel." 

SO.  "  The  reading  of  the  sacred  Scripture 
is  for  all." 

81.  "The  obscurity  of  the  sacred  word  of 
God,  is  no  reason  for  laymen  to  dispense 
themselves  from  reading  it." 

82.  "  The  Lord's  day  ought  to  be  sancti- 
fied by  Christians  for  reading  works  of  piety, 
and  above  all  of  the  sacred  Scriptures.  It  is 
damnable  to  wish  to  withdraw  a  Christian 
from  this  reading." 

84.  «  To  take  away  the  New  Testament 
from  the  hands  of  Christians,  or  to  shut  it  up 
from  them,  by  taking  from  them  the  means 


30  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

of  understanding  it,  is  to  close  the  mouth  of 
Christ  to  them." 

These,  and  such  as  these,  are  the  proposi- 
tions which  Rome  pronounces  to  be  "  false, 
scandalous,  seditious,  and  blasphemous." 
Not  satisfied  with  burying  "  the  faith  deliv- 
ered to  the  saints,"  beneath  a  mass  of  her 
own  inventions  and  fables,  she  presumes  to 
open  the  word  of  God  and  put  the  burning 
brand  of  '^  falsehood^^  and  '^  blasphemy^ ^ 
upon  truths  inscribed  there  by  the  finger  of 
God.  To  be  consistent,  she  should  tolerate 
no  one  in  her  communion,  who  holds  these 
sentiments.  She  should  permit  no  one  to 
worship  at  her  shrine,  who  is  not  prepared 
to  deny  that  the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ  is  essen- 
tial to  the  performance  of  every  good  work — 
to  deny  that  every  sinner,  when  Christ  reveals 
himself  to  him,  should  hasten  to  receive  him 
as  a  Saviour — to  deny  that  all  are  saved 
whom  God  wills  to  save  through  Jesus  Christ 
— to  deny  that  Christ  died  for  his  own  peo- 
ple— to  deny  that  all  men  have  a  right  to  the 
Scriptures — to  deny  that  the  Sabbath  ought 
to  be  sanctified  by  Christians,  in  reading  the 
Bible  and  other  books  of  piety !  In  a  word, 
the  alternative  she  presents  to  men,  is,  to 
reject  the  glorious  doctrines  of  the  Gospel 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  31 

as  "  impious,"  or  to  suffer  the  pains  and  pen- 
alties of  heresy.  An  apostle  tells  us,  "  though 
we,  or  an  angel  from  heaven,  preach  any 
other  gospel  unto  you,  than  that  which  we 
have  preached  unto  yon,  let  him  be  accursed." 
The  Church  of  Rome  tells  us,  in  effect — 
"  Though  we  or  an  angel  from  heaven  preach 
unto  you  the  gospel  of  Christ,  let  him  be  ac- 
cursed." Even  Balaam  exclaimed,  when 
asked  to  curse  Israel,  "How  shall  I  curse 
whom  God  hath  not  cursed?"  The  holy, 
apostolic  Church,  "  out  of  which  there  is  no 
salvation,"  knows  no  such  scruples.  She 
curses,  not  where  God  curses,  but  where  he 
blesses;  and  where  he  curses,  she  blesses. 
The  principles  asserted  in  the  document  that 
has  been  quoted,  would  have  made  her  curse 
the  Bereans  for  searching  the  Scriptures,  and 
they  involve  an  anathema  even  against  the 
Redeemer  himself,  for  commanding  men  to 
"  search  the  Scriptures."  The  more  cordially 
and  thoroughly  we  embrace  the  doctrines  of 
the  Bible,  the  more  certain  are  we  to  incur 
her  malediction. 

I  have  shown  that  the  Church  of  Rome  is, 
in  her  essential  principles,  intolerant  even  of 
mental  freedom — that  she  requires  every  man 
to  think  as  she  thinks — and  that  there  is  no- 


32  THE    INTOLERANCE    OP 

thing  she  hates  so  much  and  anathematizes 
so  heartily,  as  God's  own  precious  truth. 
The  'question  now  arises,  to  what  extent  does 
she  carry  her  intolerance  ?  Is  her  practice 
conformed  to  her  principles ?  The  answer 
to  this  question  has  been  anticipated,  but  it  is 
too  important  to  be  passed  over  in  a  merely 
incidental  way. 

The  Papal  Hierarchy  challenges  to  itself 
the  entire  and  exclusive  spiritual  jurisdiction 
of  the  world.  It  is  moreover  a  State  as 
well  as  a  Church,  and  claims,  by  some  of  its 
Popes  and  Councils,  a  direct,  by  others,  an 
indirect,  sovereignty  over  the  temporal  affairs 
of  men.  The  temporal  authority  is,  it  is  dis- 
tinctly asserted,  secondary  to  the  spiritual; 
and  its  resources  are  to  be  placed  at  its  dis- 
posal, whenever  the  Church  may  see  fit  to 
avail  herself  of  them.  Thus  "  Bellarmine, 
Silvius,  and  others,  say  that  the  Pope  has  not 
by  divine  right  direct  power  over  the  tem- 
poral kingdoms,  but  indirect;  i.  e.  when  the 
spiritual  power  cannot  be  freely  exercised, 
nor  his  object  be  attained  by  spiritual,  then 
he  may  have  recourse  to  temporal  means, 
according  to  St.  Thomas,  who  teaches  that 
princes  may  sometimes  be  deprived  of  their 
rule,  and  their  subjects  be  liberated  from  their 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  33 

oath  of  fidelity,  and  thus  it  has  been  done 
by  Pontiffs  more  than  once/'* 

Many  of  the  Popes  claim  a  direct  temporal 
power  of  unlimited  extent.  Thus  Pius  V., 
in  his  Bull  against  Queen  Elizabeth:  "This 
one  man  (the  Roman  Pontiff)  hath  God 
appointed  prince  over  all  nations  and  all 
kingdoms,  that  he  may  pluck  up,  destroy, 
scatter,  ruin,  plant,  build."  So  also  Innocent 
III. :  "  The  Church  hath  given  me  the  pleni- 
tude of  spiritual  things  and  the  full  extent  of 

temporal  things I  enjoy  alone  the 

plenitude  of  power,  that  others  may  say  of 
me,  next  to  God,  and  ^  out  of  his  fulness  we 
have  received!'''  Gregory  VIL:  "If  the 
Pope  has  power  to  bind  and  loose  in  heaven, 
how  much  more  to  loose  empires,  kingdoms, 
dukedoms,  and  whatever  else  mortal  man 
may  have,  and  to  give  them  where  he  will."t 

It  is  practically  the  same  thing  whether  a 
direct  or  an  indirect  power  in  temporal  things? 
be  conceded  to  the  Pope.  For  what  is  meant 
by  the  phrase  "  indirect  power,"  in  this  con- 
nexion, as  used  by  Popish  writers  ?  A  sen- 
tence or  two  from  Bellarmine,  in  his  chapter 

*  Dens,  p.  239. 

t  Vide  Breckinridge  and  Hughes'  Controversy,  pp.  242 
and  244.    Illustrations  of  Popery,  p.  204. 


34  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

on  this  subject,  will  furnish  the  answer.  "It 
is  not  lawful  (he  says)  to  tolerate  an  infidel 
or  heretical  king,  provided  he  endeavours  to 
seduce  his  subjects  to  his  heresy  or  infidelity. 
But  to  judge  whether  or  not  he  does  seduce 
them  to  heresy,  pertains  to  the  Pope,  to  whom 
is  committed  the  care  of  religion:  therefore, 
the  Pope  is  to  judge  whether  or  not  a  king  is 
to  be  deposed." 

Every  one  must  see  that  this  is  tantamount 
to  saying,  that  kings  hold  their  crowns  at  the 
will  of  the  Pope.  Indeed,  his  pretended  spi- 
ritual sovereignty  can  easily  be  made  to  em- 
brace whatever  he  chooses  to  include  in  it. 
Take  the  subject  of  marriage,  for  example. 
The  Church  of  Rome  makes  matrimony  a 
sacrament.  No  one  can  officiate  in  a  sacra- 
ment except  an  ecclesiastic  duly  qualified. 
But  there  is  no  ministry  out  of  her  commu- 
nion. Of  course,  she  alone  has  the  right  to 
solemnize  marriage.  No  one  can  be  married, 
no  one  is  truly  married,  except  by  a  Popish 
priest  or  bishop — nor,  indeed,  even  then,  un- 
less the  priest  '^  intend,"  in  his  soul  and  con- 
science, "  to  convey  the  grace  of  matrimony," 
and  "  intend"  to  make  the  man  and  woman 
a  wedded  pair.  This  single  dogma,  it  will  be 
Seen,  stretches  the  empire  of  Rome  at  once 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  35 

over  the  whole  extent  of  the  domestic  and 
social  relations  of  the  race.  Her  agency  is 
as  essential  to  the  consummation  of  a  mar- 
riage, as  it  is  to  the  celebration  of  the  mass. 
The  State  can  no  more  marry  a  couple,  than 
it  can  offer  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass.  And  as 
it  cannot  unite,  so  it  cannot  divorce.  To 
admit  the  power  of  the  State  to  divorce, 
would  be  to  recognize  its  authority  to  nullify 
a  sacrament;  and  all  sacraments  pertain  to 
the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  Church.  A 
divorce,  therefore,  is  impossible.  The  Coun- 
cil of  Trent  pronounces  any  one  "accursed" 
who  shall  maintain  that  a  married  pair  may 
be  divorced  for  any  cause  whatever.  In  this 
way  is  it,  that  under  the  guise  of  a  merely 
spiritual  supremacy,  the  Roman  Church  ar- 
rogates to  herself  the  legislative  and  judicial 
functions  of  the  State ;  and  sets  up  a  pretend- 
ed right  to  control  every  human  being  in  his 
most  interesting  and  important  relations.* 

*  It  was  no  doubt  in  virtue  of  this  same  spiritual  juris- 
diction of  the  Church,  that  Bishop  Hughes  of  New  York, 
in  his  pastoral  letter  a  year  or  two  ago.  enjoined  it  upon 
every  Roman  Catholic  congregation  in  his  diocese,  to 
place  its  corporate  property  in  his  hands — a  requisition 
akin,  in  principle,  to  a  certain  Popish  bull  issued  during 
the  wars  between  the  Papists  and  Huguenots  of  France, 


36  THE    INTOLERANCE    OP 

These  remarks  respecting  the  extent  of  the 
power  claimed  by  the  Church  of  Rome, 
seemed  essential  to  a  just  understanding  of 
the  question,  "  Is  the  practice  of  that  Church 
conformed  to  the  intolerance  of  her  princi- 
ples ?"  The  autocratic  sovereignty  over 
human  affairs,  which  she  professes  to  have 
derived  immediately  from  God,  is«employed 
for  the  purpose  of  enforcing  that  terrible 
spiritual  despotism  delineated  in  the  former 
part  of  this  work.  Bearing  in  mind  that  in 
the  pontifical  schedule  of  sins,  heresy  is  a 
worse  crime  than  perjury  or  murder,  and  that 
heresy  consists  in  not  believing  precisely  as 
Rome  believes,  even  to  the  extent  of  pro- 
nouncing many  of  the  essential  doctrines  of 
the  Gospel,  "false"  and  "blasphemous,"'  let 
these  facts  and  documents  prove  her  fidelity 
to  her  principles. 

In  the  first  place,  it  was  formerly  her  cus- 
tom, (and  may  be  still,)  to  exco7nmunicate 
and  curse  the  whole  Protestant  world  every 
year.  The  celebrated  bull.  In  Coena  Domini, 
is  ordered  to  be  "  dihgently  studied  by  the 
clergy,"  and  "  to  be  solemnly  published  in 

which  "  prohibited  (says  Dr.  McCrie  in  his  Reformation 
in  Spain,  p.  246,)  orthodox  horses  from  being  exported  out 
of  Spain." 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  37 

the  churches  once  a  year,  or  oftener,  and 
carefully  taught  the  people.*'  This  bull  was 
for  a  long  while  annually  published  with 
great  pomp  by  the  Pope  at  Rome,  on  the 
Thursday  before  Easter,  and  repeated  on  the 
same  day  in  every  Popish  chapel  and  church 
throughout  the  world,  where  the  civil  authori- 
ties would  permit  it.  I  shall  quote  but  a  sin- 
gle paragraph : — "  We  excommunicate  and 
anathematize  on  the  part  of  God  Almighty, 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  by  the  authori- 
ty also  of  the  blessed  apostles  Peter  and  Paul, 
and  by  our  own,  all  Hussites,  Wicklephists, 
Lutherans,  Zuinglians,  Calvinists,  Hugo- 
nots,  Anabaptists,  Trinitarians,  and  Apostates 
whatsoever  from  the  Christian  faith,  and  all 
and  singular  other  heretics,  under  whatsoever 
name  they  may  be  classed,  and  of  whatso- 
ever sect  they  may  be,  and  those  who  be- 
lieve, receive,  or  favour  them,  and  all  those 
who  defend  them  in  general,  whosoever  they 
be,  and  all  those  who  without  our  authority 
and  that  of  the  Apostolic  See,  knowingly 
read  or  keep,  print,  or  in  any  way  whatso- 
ever, from  any  cause,  publicly  or  privately, 
upon  any  pretence  or  colour  whatsoever, 
defend  their  books  which  contain  heresy,  or 
treat  of  religion}  also,  schismatics,  and  those 


38  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

who  pertinaciously  withdraw  themselves  or 
secede  from  obedience  to  us,  and  to  the  Ro- 
man Pontiff  for  the  time  being.^'* 

The  preamble  to  this  bull  assigns  "  chari- 
ty'^ as  the  motive  for  its  annual  republica- 
tion: the  design  of  it  is,  to  "  preserve  the 
unity  and  integrity  of  the  Catholic  faith," 
and  to  "  procure  the  utmost  peace  and  tran- 
quillity of  the  Christian  world."  Whereupon 
a  late  British  writer  forcibly  remarks :  "  What 
a  mockery  is  it  to  talk  of  laws  making  a  na- 
tion tranquil  when  a  set  of  Popish  bishops 
and  priests  are  breathing  secretly  into  the 
ears  of  one  mass  of  the  population,  curses  and 
execrations  against  the  other,  and  making  it 
religion  to  do  so — cursing  them  on  behalf  of 
God  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost 
— that  blessed  name  under  which  the  Lord 
Jesus  commanded  his  apostles  to  proclaim 
mercy  and  to  baptize  all  who  received  it. 
What  mockery  is  it  to  talk  of  loyalty  to  an 
excommunicated  and  accursed  sovereign  ! — 
of  subjection  to  excommunicated  and  ac- 
cursed governors  ! — of  submission  to  laws 
administered  by  excommunicated  and  ac- 
cursed judges  ! — of  peace  and  charity  with 
excommunicated  and  accursed  neighbours  !"t 

*  Laws  of  the  Papacy,  p.  52.  t  lb. 


THE    CHURCH    OP    ROME.  39 

Who  can  wonder  at  the  hatred,  the  bitter 
hatred,  not  merely  of  Protestantism  but  of 
Protestants,  which  pervades  the  mass  of  the 
people  in  all  Popish  countries,  when  the  min- 
istrations of  the  priesthood  and  the  ordinances 
of  the  church,  are  thus  employed  to  feed 
their  malevolence,  atid  teach  them  to  regard 
Protestants  as  the  foes  alike  of.  God  and 
man. 

Another  thought  may  be  thrown  out  be- 
fore leaving  this  document.  Protestant  minis- 
ters are  sometimes  censured  for  their  unchari- 
tableness  in  speaking  harshly  of  the  papal 
system.  But  what  would  be  thought  of  a 
Protestant  minister  who  should  summarily 
pronounce  from  his  pulpit,  all  Roman  Catho- 
lics, and  all  who  believe,  receive,  or  favour 
them,  and  all  who  read  their  books,  *•  «c- 
citrsed^^  "  in  the  name  of  God  Almighty,  Fa- 
ther, Son,  and  Holy  Ghost!" 

The  excommunication  and  malediction  of 
Protestants  is  the  first  step  with  Rome,  in 
carrying  out  her  principles.  To  deny  their 
right  to  toleration  is  the  second.  A  very 
few  authorities  will  suffice  on  this  point. 

Peter  Dens  thus  lays  down  the  law:* 
"The  rites  of  other  infidels   [Jews  having 

*  Pp.  107,  108, 114,  117. 


40  THE    INTOLERANCE    OP 

been  previously  named,]  viz.  pagans  and 
heretics,  in  themselves  (considered),  are  not 
to  be  tolerated;  because  they  are  so  bad,  that 
no  truth  or  advantage  for  the  good  of  the 
church  can  be  thence  derived:  except,  how- 
ever, unless  greater  evils  would  follow,  or 
greater  benefits  be  hindered." 

Again,  he  says,  (same  page,)  that  heresy 
"  is  not  to  be  tried  or  proved,  but  extirjmted ; 
unless  there  may  be  reasons  which  may  ren- 
der it  advisable  that  it  should  be  tolerated." 

Hear,  on  the  same  subject,  the  Popish  pre- 
lates of  Belgium.  No  sooner  had  the  king 
of  the  Netherlands  taken  possession  of  his 
dominions,  than  they  addressed  to  him  a 
strong  remonstrance  against  the  toleration  of 
all  denominations.  "  Sire,"  they  say,  *^  we 
do  not  hesitate  to  declare  to  your  majesty, 
that  the  canonical  laws  which  are  sanctioned 
by  the  ancient  constitutions  of  the  country, 
are  incompatible  with  the  projected  constitu- 
tion which  would  give  in  Belgium  equal  fa- 
vour and  protection  to  all  religions."  In  other 
words,  the  canonical  laws,  which  are  recog- 
nized by  the  whole  Roman  church,  are  in- 
compatible with  religious  toleration.  They 
afterwards  go  so  far  in  this  document,  as  dis- 
tinctly to  intimate  to  the  king,  that  if  any 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  41 

religion  but  their  own  is  tolerated,  they  and 
their  adherents  will  be  found  opposed  to  the 
laws  and  the  government;*  an  avowal  of 
which  it  is  difficult  to  decide  whether  its 
frankness  or  its  effrontery  be  the  greater. 

Not  less  explicit  is  the  testimony  of  Pius 
VII.  Writing  to  his  nuncio  at  Venice  in  1805, 
he  reminds  him,  that,  according  to  the  laws 
of  the  church,  heretics  cannot  hold  any  pro- 
perty whatever,  since  the  crime  of  heresy 
ought  to  be  punished  by  confiscation  of  goods. 
He  also  tells  him,  that  the  subjects  of  an 
heretical  prince,  should  be  released  from 
every  duty  to  him — freed  from  all  obligation 
and  all  homage.  But  he  adds,  very  consist- 
ently, this  lamentation :  "  In  truth  we  have 
fallen  on  times  so  calamitous,  and  so  humili- 
ating to  the  spouse  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  it  is 
not  possible  for  her  to  practice,  nor  expedient 
to  recall,  so  holy  maxims  ;  and  she  h  foiled 
to  interruj)t  the  course  of  her  just  severities 
against  the  enemies  of  her  fait  h.^^  In  other 
words;  she  ceases  to  persecute  them,  only 
because  she  lacks  the  power.  Again,  in  his 
his  letter  to  the  cardinals,  of  Feb.  5,  ISOS,  he 
says,  alluding  to  Bonaparte's  proposal  to  ex- 

*  Breckinridge  and  Hughes,  p.  103. 
4 


42  THE    INTOLERANCE    OP 

tend  toleration  to  all  sects :  "  It  is  proposed 
that  all  religious  persuasions  should  be  free, 
and  their  worship  publicly  exercised;  but  we 
have  rejected  this  article  as  contrary  to  the 
canons,  and  to  the  councils,  to  the  Catholic 
religion,  and  to  the  welfare  of  the  State,  on 
account  of  the  deplorable  consequences  which 
ensue  from  it."  Here  we  have  the  deliberate 
declaration  of  a  Roman  Pontiff  within  the 
present  century,  that  religious  toleration  is 
contrary  to  the  canons,  the  councils,  yea,  and 
to  the  Catholic  religion  itself.  So  they  teach, 
and  so  they  act.  Toleration  is  unknown  to 
this  day  in  all  thoroughly  Popish  countries. 
Fond  as  the  papal  ecclesiastics  in  this  country 
are  of  talking  about  religious  freedom  and 
the  mild  genius  of  their  religion,  they  know 
perfectly  well  that  any  Protestant  minister 
who  should  go  to  Rome  and  undertake  to 
preach  the  gospel  or  distribute  bibles  in  that 
city,  would  be  instantly  seized  by  the  Pope's 
officers  and  cast  into  prison.  This  is  the  kind 
of  toleration  enjoyed  within  the  Pope's  tem- 
poral dominions. 

But  Rome  is  not  satisfied  with  anathema- 
tizing heretics  and  denying  their  right  to  toler- 
ation; she  insists  upon  \\qx  right  to  persecute 
them.    This  right  has  been  asserted  by  her 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  43 

Standard  authors,  by  her  popes,  by  her  coun- 
cils, and,  in  fine,  in  every  way  in  which  it 
was  possible  for  her  to  proclaim  it. 

Peter  Dens  teaches  that  "  baptized  infidels, 
such  as  heretics  and  apostates  usually  are, 
also  baptized  schismatics,  may  be  compelled 
even  by  corporal  punishments  to  return  to  the 
Catholic  faith  and  the  unity  of  the  church." 
P.  107. 

Again,  he  asks,  (p.  117,)  "«/?re  heretics 
rightly  punished  with  death?^^  The  an- 
swer is  as  gentle  and  Christian-like  as  could 
be  expected  from  an  accredited  expounder  of 
the  papal  creed.  It  runs  thus :  "  St.  Thomas 
answers.  Yes;  because /or^er^  of  money,  or 
other  disturbers  of  the  State,  are  justly  pun- 
ished with  death,  therefore  also  heretics, 
who  are  forgers  of  the  faith,  and,  experience 
being  the  witness,  grievously  disturb  the 
State." 

The  sentiments  of  Leo  X.  on  this  subject 
must  be  known  to  all  who  have  read  Dr. 
Merle's  admirable  History  of  the  Reforma- 
tion; every  page  of  which  exhibits  the  in- 
tolerance of  Popery.  It  will  be  suificient  to 
quote  here  the  fact,  that  among  the  forty-one 
propositions  of  Luther,  condemned  by  the 
Pontiff  in  1520,  (see  vol.  ii.  p.  102,)  was  this 


44  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

one,  to  wit :  "  To  burn  heretics  is  contrary 
to  the  will  of  the  Holy  Spirit." 

The  proposition  here  condemned  by  the 
Pope,  was  subsequently  controverted  by 
Cardinal  Bellarmine,  the  great  Roman  theo- 
logian, whose  argument  will  put  us  in  pos- 
session of  the  true  Popish  doctrine  respecting 
persecution. 

''We  will  briefly  show  (says  Bellarmine) 
that  the  Church  has  the  power,  and  it  is  her 
duty  to  cast  off  incorrigible  heretics,  espe- 
cially those  who  have  relapsed,  and  that  the 
secular  power  ought  to  inflict  on  such,  tem- 
poral punishment,  and    even   death    itself. 

1.  This  may  be  proved  from  the  Scriptures. 

2.  It  is  proved  from  the  opinions  and  laws 
of  the  emperors,  which  the  Church  has  al- 
ways approved.  3.  It  is  proved  by  the 
laws  of  the  Church.  4.  It  is  proved  by  the 
testimony  of  the  fathers.  Lastly,  It  is 
proved  from  natural  reason.  For,  (1)  it  is 
owned  by  all  that  heretics  may  of  right  be 
excommunicated;  of  course  they  may  be 
put  to  death.  This  consequence  is  proved, 
because  excommunication  is  a  greater  pun- 
ishment than  temporal  death.  (2)  Expe- 
rience proves  that  there  is  no  other  remedy; 
for  the  Church  has,  step  by  step,  tried  all 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  45 

remedies; — first,  excommunication  alone, 
then,  pecuniary  penalties ;  afterwards,  ban- 
ishment; and  lastly,  has  been  forced  to  put 
them  to  death  to  send  them  to  their  own 
place.  (3)  All  allow  that  forgery  deserves 
death,  but  heretics  are  guilty  of  forgery  of 
the  word  of  God.  (4)  A  breach  of  faith  by 
man  towards  God,  is  a  greater  sin  than  of  a 
wife  with  her  husband.  But  a  woman's 
unfaithfulness  is  punished  with  death  ;  why 
not  a  heretic's  ?  (5)  There  are  three  grounds 
on  which  reason  shows  that  heretics  should 
be  put  to  death.  The  first  is,  lest  the  wicked 
should  injure  the  righteous.  The  second, 
that  by  the  punishment  of  a  few,  many  may 
be  reformed.  For  many  who  were  made 
torpid  by  impunity,  are  roused  by  the  fear 
of  punishment;  and  this  we  daily  see  is  the 
result  where  the  inquisition  flourishes.  Fi- 
nally, it  is  a  benefit  to  obstinate  heretics  to 
remove  them  from  this  life,  for  the  longer 
they  live  the  more  errors  they  invent,  the 
more  persons  they  mislead,  and  the  greater 
damnation  do  they  treasure  up  to  themselves. 
"It  remains  (he  proceeds)  to  answer  the 
objections  of  Luther  and  other  heretics.  Ar- 
gument 1,  From  the  history  of  the  Church 
at  large.     '  The  Church,'  says  Luther,  ^  from 


46  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

the  beginning  even  to  this  time,  has  never 
burned  a  heretic.  Therefore  it  does  not 
seem  to  be  the  mind  of  the  Holy  Spirit  that 
they  should  be  burned.'  I  reply,  this  argu- 
ment admirably  proves,  not  the  sentiment, 
but  the  ignorance  or  impudence  of  Luther. 
For  as  almost  an  infinite  number  were 
either  burned  or  otherwise  2^ut  to  death, 
Luther  either  did  not  know  it,  and  was  there- 
fore ignorant ;  of  if  he  knew  it,  he  is  con- 
victed of  impudence  and  falsehood ;  for  that 
heretics  were  often  burned  by  the  Church, 
may  be  proved  by  adducing  a  few  from 
many  examples."  [He  instances  Donatists, 
Manicheans,  and  Albigenses.] 

"Argument  2.  ^Experience  shows  that 
terror  is  not  useful  in  such  cases.'  I  reply, 
Experience  proves  the  contrary;  for  the  Do- 
natists, Manicheans,  and  Albigenses,  were 
routed  and  annihilated  by  arms. 

"Argument  13.  *The  Lord  attributes  (says 
the  Protestant)  to  the  Church,  the  sword  of 
the  Spirit,  which  is  the  word  of  God;  but 
not  the  material  sword.  Nay,  he  said  to 
Peter,  who  wished  to  defend  him  with  a  ma- 
terial sword,  Put  up  thy  sword  into  the 
scabbard.'  I  answer:  As  the  Church  has 
ecclesiastical  and  secular  princes,  who  are 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  47 

her  two  arms,  so  she  has  two  swords,  the  spi- 
ritual and  the  material;  and  therefore,  when 
her  right  hand  is  unable  to  convert  a  heretic 
with  the  sword  of  the  Spirit,  she  invokes  the 
aid  of  the  left  hand,  and  coerces  heretics 
with  the  material  sword. 

"Argument  18.  *The  apostles  (say  the 
Protestants)  never  invoked  the  secular  arm 
against  heretics.'  Answer:  The  apostles 
did  it  not  because  there  was  no  Christian 
prince  on  whom  they  could  call  for  aid.  But 
afterwards,  in  Constantino's  time,  the  Church 
called  in  the  aid  of  the  secular  arm."  (Bel- 
larmine,  ch.  xxi.  lib.  3.) 

The  atrocious  doctrine  so  elaborately  de- 
fended in  this  passage  from  the  pen  of  Rome's 
ablest  champion,  has  been  sanctioned  times 
without  number  by  her  Popes  and  Councils. 

In  the  fifth  Council  of  Toledo,  Can.  3,  the 
holy  fathers  say : — "  We  the  holy  council  pro- 
mulge  this  sentence  or  decree  pleasing  to  God, 
that  whosoever  hereafter  shall  succeed  to  the 
kingdom,  shall  not  mount  the  throne  till  he 
has  sworn  among  other  oaths,  to  permit  no 
man  to  live  in  his  kingdom  who  is  not  a 
Catholic.  And  if  after  he  has  taken  the  reins 
of  government,  he  shall  violate  this  promise, 
let  him  be  anathema  maranatha  in  the  sight 


48  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

of  the  eternal  God,  and  become  fuel  of  the 
eternal  fire."     (Caranza  Sum.  Cone.  p.  404.) 

In  the  fourth  general  Council  of  Lateran, 
held  under  Innocent  III.,  A.  D.  1215,  they 
say  : — "  We  excommunicate  and  anathema- 
tize every  heres^^  extolling  itself  against  this 
holy,  orthodox,  catholic  faith,  and  condemn 
ail  heretics."  Heretics  are  left  to  the  secular 
powers  to  be  duly  punished.  The  secular 
powers  are  required  to  take  an  oath,  that 
they  will  exterminate  to  their  utmost  power, 
all  heretics  within  their  dominions  devoted 
by  the  Church.  And  if  any  temporal  lord 
neglect  to  "  purge  his  territory  of  this  hereti- 
cal filth,"  he  is,  in  the  first  instance,  to  be 
excommunicated  :  then,  on  another  year's 
delay,  his  vassals  are  to  be  absolved  from  their 
allegiance,  and  his  country  turned  over  to 
any  Catholics  who  may  be  able  to  possess 
themselves  of  it.  As  an  inducement  to  the 
execution  of  this  sanguinary  edict,  it  is  fur- 
ther provided,  that  Catholics  who  "gird  them- 
selves for  the  extermination  of  heretics,  shall 
enjoy  that  indulgence  and  be  fortified  with 
that  holy  privilege,  which  is  granted  to  them 
that  go  to  the  help  of  the  Holy  Land." 

It  is  in  vain  alleged  by  the  modern  de- 
fenders of  Popery,  that  the  Albigenses,  against 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  49 

whom  the  famous  decree  just  cited  was  lev- 
elled, held  various  pernicious  opinions  in 
morals,  and  were  a  lawless  and  seditious 
people.  Their  character  for  substantial  or- 
thodoxy in  doctrine,  and  general  purity  of 
conduct,  has  been  amply  vindicated  by  nu- 
merous writers.  It  is  an  expedient  worthy 
of  Rome,  to  try  to  palliate  her  atrocities  by 
blackening  the  characters  of  her  victims.  But 
even  allowing  that  the  Albigenses  were  all 
that  she  affirms  them  to  have  been,  what  jus- 
tification does  this  furnish  of  her  conduct? 
Who  gave  her  the  cognizance  oi  civil  crimes 
in  foreign  states?  What  business  has  she  to 
call  upon  princes  and  magistrates  to  perse- 
cute and  murder  a  class  of  their  subjects 
whom  she  deems  worthy  of  death  ?  Whence 
came  her  right  to  depose  these  princes  and 
appropriate  their  territories  to  whoever  might 
be  strong  enough  to  seize  them,  in  case  they 
should  refuse  to  hunt  and  destroy  these  un- 
happy "  heretics ?''  And  conceding  that  she 
had  all  this  power — that  she  did  not  trans- 
cend her  prerogative  in  issuing  this  decree — 
is  it  such  a  document  as  ought  to  emanate 
from  the  rulers  of  the  Christian  Church? 
Does  it  breathe  the  spirit  of  the  gospel? 
Would  Christ  and  his  apostles  have  publicly 
5 


50  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

anathematized  a  whole  people,  and  doomed 
them  to  hell,  and  then  called  upon  kings  and 
princes  to  march  their  armies  against  them 
and  slay  them  without  mercy,  under  pain  of 
being  dethroned  and  cursed  themselves?  Let 
such  an  edict  as  the  one  under  consideration, 
be  inserted  in  the  New  Testament — after 
the  sermon  on  the  mount,  for  example,  or 
after  that  memorable  rebuke  which  our  Sa- 
viour gave  to  James  and  John  for  wishing  to 
command  fire  to  come  down  from  heaven 
and  consume  the  Samaritan  village — and  see 
how  it  will  read  there.  How  consistent  would 
it  appear  with  the  Redeemer's  character, 
how  much  in  keeping  with  his  usual  spirit, 
for  him,  after  he  had  said,  ^*  The  Son  of  man 
is  not  come  to  destroy  men's  lives  but  to  save 
them,"  to  promulgate  an  edict  enjoining  it 
upon  princes  and  potentates  to  exterminate 
all  unbelievers  in  their  dominions  with  fire 
and  sword,  and  promising  the  rewards  of 
heaven  to  those  who  were  the  most  vigilant 
in  butchering  heretics!  Such  is  precisely  the 
harmony  between  the  Church  of  Rome  and 
the  Christianity  of  the  Bible. 

The  authorhies  which  have  been  cited, 
may  suffice  to  show  that  intolerance  per- 
vades   the   whole    theory   of   the    Romish 


THE    CHURCH    OP    ROME.  51 

Church ;  and  that  the  right  and  duty  of  the 
Church  to  persecute  heretics,  have  been 
avowed  by  her  popes  and  councils,  in  the 
most  explicit  manner.  Pier  practice  has 
been  in  revolting  harmony  with  her  princi- 
ples. The  bloody  edict  last  cited,  was  fol- 
lowed by  tlje  slaughter  of  two  hundred  thou- 
sand Albigenses.  And  in  the  course  of  the 
persecutions  against  that  people  and  the 
Waldenses,  which  continued  for  several  cen- 
turies, not  less  than  one  million  of  victims 
are  supposed  to  have  been  offered  up  on  the 
altar  of  the  Roman  Moloch.  One  scene,  in 
the  progress  of  these  cruelties,  is  thus  depict- 
ed:— "The  population  of  the  city  of  Beziers, 
amounting  to  fifteen  thousand  persons,  to- 
gether with  many  thousands  more,  who  had 
fled  to  the  city  from  the  surrounding  vil- 
lages, were  massacred  without  mercy.  '  This 
whole  multitude,'  says  Sismondi,  'at  the  mo- 
ment when  the  crusaders  became  masters  of 
the  gates,  took  refuge  in  the  churches:  the 
great  cathedral  of  St.  Nicaise  contained  the 
greater  number.  The  canons,  clothed  with 
their  choral  habits,  surrounded  the  altar  and 
sounded  the  bells,  as  if  to  express  their  pray- 
ers to  the  furious  assailants;  but  these  sup- 
plications of  brass  were  as  little  heard  as 


52  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

those  of  the  human  voice.'  It  will  be  per- 
ceived from  this  description  that  the  popula- 
tion of  Beziers  consisted  partly  of  Roman 
Catholics;  but  they  were  involved  in  the 
common  destruction;  for  when  the  knights 
of  the  army  inquired  of  the  Papal  legate, 
Arnold  Amalric,  abbot  of  Citeaux,  how  they 
could  distinguish  the  Roman  Catholics  from 
the  heretics,  he  replied,  ^ Kill  them  all;  the 
Lord  will  know  well  who  are  His.'  The 
historian  proceeds:  *The  bells  ceased  not  to 
sound,  till  of  that  immense  multitude  which 
had  taken  refuge  in  the  church,  the  last  had 
been  massacred.  Neither  were  those  spared 
that  had  taken  refuge  in  the  other  churches; 
seven  thousand  dead  bodies  were  counted  in 
that  of  the  Magdalen  alone.  When  the  cru- 
saders had  massacred  the  last  living  creature 
in  Beziers,  and  had  pillaged  the  houses  of  all 
that  they  thought  worth  carrying  oif,  they 
set  fire  to  the  city  in  every  part  at  once,  and 
reduced  it  to  a  vast  funeral  pile.  Not  a 
house  remained  standing,  not  a  human  being 
alive.'"  This  occurred  A.D.  1297.  Three 
or  four  hundred  years  afterwards,  these 
scenes  were  renewed  in  the  valleys  of  Pied- 
mont. In  one  place  they  mercilessly  tor- 
tured not  less  than  an  hundred  and  fifty 


THE    CHURCH    OP    ROME.  53 

women  and  their  children,  chopping  off  the 
the  heads  of  some,  and  dashing  out  the  brains 
of  others  against  the  rocks.  And  in  regard 
to  those  whom  they  took  prisoners,  from 
fifteen  years  old  and  upwards,  who  refused 
to  go  to  mass,  they  hanged  some,  and  nailed 
others  to  the  trees  by  their  feet,  with  their 
heads  downwards.*  It  was  on  this  occasion 
that  Milton  wrote  the  following  sonnet: 

"  Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints,  whose  bones 
Lie  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold : 
E'en  them  who  kept  thy  truth  so  pure  of  old, 

When  all  our  fathers  worshipped  stocks  and  stones, 

Forget  not ;  in  thy  book  record  their  groans, 
Who  were  thy  sheep,  and  in  their  ancient  fold 
Slain  by  the  bloody  Piedmontese,  that  rolled 

Mother  with  infant  down  the  rocks.    Their  moans 
The  vales  redoubled  to  the  hills,  and  they 

To  heaven.    Their  martyred  blood  and  ashes  sow 
O'er  all  the  Italian  fields,  where  still  doth  sway 

The  triple  tyrant ;  that  fi'om  these  may  grow 
A  hundred  fold,  who,  having  learned  thy  way, 

Early  may  fly  the  Babylonian  wo." 

Perhaps  no  country  has  furnished  so  many 
Protestant  martyrs  as  France.  The  massa- 
cre of  St.  Bartholomew's  day,  August  24, 

*  Vide  Tract  I.,  of  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Publica- 
tion, Series  on  Popery,  pp.  41,  42. 


54  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

1572,  was  the  result  of  a  design  deliberately 
formed  for  the  utter  extinction  of  Protestant- 
ism in  that  country.     "At  midnight  the  toc- 
sin tolled  the  signal  of  destruction,  and  the 
carnage  which  was  then  begun,  lasted  seven 
days.     The  king,  Charles   IX.,  encouraged 
the   murderers  in   their   work,  shouting  to 
them  with  all  his  might,  «  Kill,'  '  kill  V     The 
queen  gazed  with  delight  on  thousands  of 
naked  bodies,  covered  with  wounds  and  wel- 
tering in  their  gore.     Five  hundred  noble- 
men, and  five  thousand  other  Protestants, 
were  murdered  in  Paris,  and  at  least  twenty 
thousand,  some   say   as    many   as  seventy 
thousand,  in  the  kingdom  at  large."     And 
how  were  the  tidings  of  this  event  received 
at  Rome?     How  did  the  pretended  vicar  of 
the  meek  and  lowly  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  de- 
port himself  on  the  occasion?     "He  went  in 
public  procession  to  one  of  the  churches,  to 
praise   God  for  it.     He   congratulated   the 
king  on  the  accomplishment  of  an  exploit 
'so  long  meditated,  and  so  happily  executed, 
for  the  good  of  religion.'     He  caused  a  me- 
dal to  be  struck  in  perpetual  remembrance 
of  so  godly  an  action,  bearing  on  one  side 
his  own  effigies,  and  on  the  other,  a  repre- 
sentation of  the  slaughter  of  the  Huguenots  j 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ^OME.  55 

and  he  ordered  an  eminent  artist  to  execute 
three  paintings,  representing  the  bloody  deed, 
as  ornaments  for  his  own  palace,  where  they 
are  still  to  be  seen.  These  are  the  tender 
mercies  of  Rome  !"* 

A  still  more  dreadful  massacre  of  the 
Huguenots  took  place  on  the  occasion  of  the 
revocation  of  the  edict  of  Nantes.  This 
edict,  by  which  toleration  was  secured  to 
Protestants,  had  been  in  force  since  1598. 
But  in  1685,  the  Popish  prelates  and  the 
Jesuits  prevailed  upon  Louis  XIV.  to  rescind 
it,  and  to  attempt  the  extermination  of  his 
Protestant  subjects.  The  time  will  not  per- 
mit me  even  to  present  an  outline  of  the  bar- 
barities which  ensued  in  every  part  of  France. 
Great  numbers  of  the  Huguenots  were  slain, 
and  upwards  of  half  a  million  of  them  es- 
caped to  foreign  lands ;  many  of  them  to 
this  country,  where  their  descendants  still 
reside,  and  constitute  (it  may  be  added)  one 
of  the  most  enlightened  and  valuable  por- 
tions of  our  population. 

Another  memorable  tragedy  in  the  annals 
of  Popery,  is  the  Irish  Massacre  of  1641, 

*  Vide  Tract  L,  of  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Publica- 
tion, Series  on  Popery,  p.  44;  and  Hist.  Popery,  p.  332. 


56  THE  INTOLERANCE    OF 

This  was  the  result  of  an  extended  and  well 
organized  conspiracy  for  exterminating  the 
Protestants  in  Ireland.  Archbishop  Usher 
and  other  authors  state,  that  prior  to  the 
massacre,  the  Roman  priests  were  assiduous 
in  persuading  the  people  not  to  spare  a  man, 
woman,  or  child,  of  the  Protestants;  assuring 
them,  that  "  it  would  do  them  much  good  to 
wash  their  hands  in  the  hearts'  blood  of  the 
heretics.'^  The  common,  ignorant  people 
taught  by  their  Jesuit  priests,  that  the  "  Pro- 
testants were  worse  than  dogs,  for  they  were 
devils;  and  therefore  the  killing  of  them  was 
a  meritorious  act,  and  a  rare  preservative 
against  the  pains  of  purgatory;  for,  (said 
they)  the  bodies  of  those  who  fall  in  the  holy 
cause  shall  not  be  cold,  before  their  souls 
shall  ascend  up  into  heaven."  These  instruc- 
tions were  not  lost.  The  massacre  commenced 
most  fitly  on  the  23d  of  October,  the  feast  of 
Ignatius  Loyola:  and  the  Jesuits  had  the 
satisfaction  of  knowing  that  the  festival  of 
their  founder,  was  worthily  commemorated 
by  the  ferocious  slaughter  of  many  thousand 
Protestants.  Hume,  the  historian,  says  that 
the  cruelty  which  characterized  this  transac- 
tion, was  "  the  most  barbarous  that  ever,  in 
any  nation,  was  known  or  heard  of.    No  age? 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  57 

no  sex,  no  condition,  was  spared.  The  wife 
weeping  for  her  butchered  husband,  and  em- 
bracing her  helpless  children,  was  pierced 
with  them,  and  perished  with  the  same  stroke ; 
the  old,  the  young,  the  vigorous,  the  infirm, 
underwent  the  like  fate,  and  were  confound- 
ed in  one  common  ruin.  In  vain  was  recourse 
had  to  relations,  to  companions,  to  friends; 
all  connexions  were  dissolved,  and  death  was 
dealt  by  that  hand  from  which  protection 
was  implored  and  expected.  Without  pro- 
vocation, without  opposition,  the  astonished 
English  (Protestants)  being  in  profound  peace 
and  full  security,  were  massacred  by  their 
nearest  neighbours  with  whom  they  had  long 
upheld  a  continued  intercourse"  of  kindness 
and  good  offices.  But  death  was  the  lightest 
punishment  inflicted  by  those  enraged  rebels; 
all  the  tortures  which  wanton  cruelty  could 
devise,  all  the  lingering  pains  of  body  and 
anguish  of  mind,  the  agonies  of  despair, 
could  not  satiate  revenge  excited  without  in- 
jury, and  cruelty  derived  from  no  cause.  .  .  . 
The  weaker  sex  themselves,  naturally  ten- 
der and  compassionate,  here  emulated  their 
more  robust  companions  in  the  practice  of 
every  cruelty.  Even  children,  taught  by  the 
example,  and  encouraged  by  the  exhortations 


58  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

of  their  parents,  essayed  their  feeble  blows 
on  the  dead  carcasses  or  defenceless  children 
of  the  English.  If  any  where  a  number 
assembled  together,  and,  assuming  courage 
from  despair,  were  resolved  to  sweeten  death 
by  revenge  upon  their  assassins,  they  were 
disarmed  by  capitulations  and  promises  of 
safety,  confirmed  by  the  most  solemn  oaths ; 
then  the  rebels  (in  the  immutable  spirit  of 
Popery)  with  perfidy  equal  to  their  cruelty, 
made  them  share  the  fate  of  their  unhappy 
countrymen.  Others,  more  ingenious  still  in 
their  barbarity,  tempted  their  prisoners  with 
the  fond  hope  of  life,  to  imbrue  their  hands 
in  the  blood  of  their  friends,  brothers,  and 
parents ;  and  having  thus  rendered  them  ac- 
complices in  guilt,  gave  them  that  death 
which  they  sought  to  shun  by  deserving  it. 

"Amidst  all  these  enormities  the  sacred 
name  of  religion  sounded  on  every  side,  not 
to  stop  the  hands  of  these  murderers,  but  to 
enforce  their  blows,  and  to  steel  their  hearts 
against  every  movement  of  human  or  social 
sympathy.  The  English,  as  heretics  abhor- 
red of  God  and  detestable  to  all  holy  men, 
were  marked  out  by  the  priests  for  slaughter ; 
and  of  all  actions,  to  rid  the  world  of  these 
declared  enemies  to  Catholic  faith  and  piety, 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  59 

was  represented  as  the  most  meritorious  in 
its  nature;  which,  in  that  rude  people — suf- 
ficiently inclined  to  atrocious  deeds — was  fur- 
ther stimulated  by  precepts  and  national  pre- 
judices, empoisoned  by  those  aversions,  more 
deadly  and  incurable,  which  arose  from  an 
enraged  superstition.  While  death  finished 
the  sufferings  of  each  victim,  the  bigotted  as- 
sassins, with  joy  and  exultation,  still  echoed 
in  his  expiring  ears,  that  these  agonies  were 
but  the  commencement  of  torments  infinite 
and  eternal.'' 

Such  is  the  account  given  by  an  infidel 
historian,  of  the  Irish  Massacre.  The  prime 
agency  of  the  Church  of  Rome  in  planning 
and  executing  it,  is  so  indisputable,  that  it 
may  with  justice  be  appealed  to  as  an  illus- 
tration of  the  ferocious  spirit  of  Popery. 

There  is  one  other  chapter  in  the  records 
of  Popish  intolerance  and  blood-thirstiness, 
which  ought  not  to  be  passed  over  in  silence 
here;  I  mean,  that  which  pertains  to  the  In- 
quisition. The  popular  histories  of  this  in- 
fernal institution,  (one  of  the  best  of  which, 
let  me  add,  has  been  published  by  the  Pres- 
byterian Board  of  Publication,)  are  too  well 
known  to  make  it  necessary  for  me  to  enter 
into  a  detailed  account  of  it,  even  if  my  limits 


60  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

would  permit.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
such  an  institution  as  this  is  proved  to  have 
been,  could  have  existed  any  where  out  of 
hell;  or  that  any  beings  except  devils  could 
have  been  guilty  of  the  atrocities  which  were 
constantly  practised  by  the  inquisitors  and 
priests  in  the  name  of  the  Christian  rehgion. 
"  In  Spain  (says  the  author  of  the  '  Boak  of 
Popery,'*)  there  were  at  one  time  no  less 
than  eighteen  different  inquisitorial  courts: 
and  besides  the  vast  numbers  who  were  im- 
mediately connected  with  them  as  officers, 
there  were  twenty-thousand  familiars,  or 
spies,  scattered  throughout  the  country,  whose 
business  it  was  to  mingle  in  all  companies 
and  drag  all  suspected  persons  to  the  cell  of 
the  Inquisition.  .  .  .  No  family  could  separate 
for  the  night,  but  the  appalling  conviction 
must  have  forced  itself  upon  them,  that  they 
were,  not  improbably,  taking  of  each  other  a 
final  leave.  Fancy  the  horror  of  the  scene, 
when  the  prison-carriage  was  heard  at  the 
dead  of  the  night,  to  stop  before  the  door,  and 
immediately  a  loud  knock  was  accompanied 
by  the  stern  command,  "0/;en  to  the  Holy 
Inquisition.'^  Every  inmate  in  the  dwel- 
ling felt  his  blood  curdle  at  the  sound:  the 

*  Published  by  the  Board  of  Publication. 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  61 

head  of  the  family  was  called  to  give  up  the 
mother  of  his  beloved  and  helpless  children; 
he  dared  not  even  to  whisper  an  objection  or 
let  fall  a  tear;  but  hastening  back  to  her 
chamber,  led  her  out,  and  placed  her  in  the 
custody  of  an  incarnate  demon; — and  then 
as  the  prison-carriage  rolled  away  to  the  dun- 
geons, how  was  that  husband  convulsed  with 
agony,  as  he  contemplated  her  as  the  inno- 
cent victim  of  a  long  and  living  death !  ...  So 
secret  were  the  movements  of  these  familiars, 
that  it  was  not  uncommon  for  members  of 
the  same  family  to  be  ignorant  of  each  oth- 
er's apprehension.  One  instance  is  recorded 
by  Limborch,  in  which  a  father,  three  sons, 
and  three  daughters,  all  of  whom  occupied 
the  same  house,  were  separately  seized,  and 
thrown  into  the  dungeons  of  the  Inquisition, 
and  knew  nothing  of  each  other's  fate  till 
after  seven  years  of  torture,  Avhen  those  of 
them  who  survived,  met  to  mingle  their  death 
groans  at  an  auto-da-fe.''^  The  accused  were 
not  informed  of  the  charges  alleged  against 
them;  nor  of  the  names  of  the  witnesses.  No 
opportunity  was  afforded  them  of  examining 
■witnesses  or  introducing  countervailing  testi- 
mony. Every  species  of  cunning  and  sub- 
tlety was  employed  to  induce  them  to  impli- 


62  THE    INTOLERANCE    OP 

cate  themselves  by  confessing  some  real  or 
constructive  offence  against  the  Church.  If 
these  arts  failed,  torture  was  applied.  The 
modes  of  torture  were  various ;  the  three 
principal  were  the  torture  by  the  pulley,  the 
torture  by  fire,  and  the  torture  by  the  rack. 
The  last  of  these,  which  was  the  one  most 
commonly  used,  was  inflicted  by  stretching 
the  victim  (divested  of  all  his  outer  clothing) 
on  his  back,  along  a  wooden  horse  or  hollow 
bench,  with  sticks  across  like  a  ladder,  and 
prepared  for  the  purpose.  To  this  his  feet, 
hands,  and  head  were  strongly  bound  in  such 
manner  as  to  leave  him  no  room  to  move. 
In  this  attitude  he  experienced  eight  strong 
contortions  in  his  limbs,  viz.  two  on  the  fleshy 
parts  of  the  arm  above  the  elbow,  and  two 
below,  one  on  each  thigh,  and  also  on  the 
legs.  He  was  besides  obliged  to  swallow 
seven  pints  of  water  slowly  dropped  into  his 
mouth  on  a  piece  of  silk  or  ribbon,  which,  by 
the  pressure  of  the  water,  glided  down  his 
throat,  so  as  to  produce  all  the  horrid  sensa- 
tions of  a  person  who  is  drowning.  At  other 
times,  his  face  was  covered  with  a  thin  piece 
of  linen,  through  which  the  water  ran  into 
his  mouth  and  nostrils,  and  prevented  him 
from  breathing. 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  63 

For  the  torture  by  fire,  the  prisoner  was 
placed  with  his  legs  naked  in  the  stocks;  the 
soles  of  his  feet  were  then  well  greased  with 
lard,  and  a  blazing  chafing-dish  applied  to 
them,  by  the  heat  of  which  they  became  per- 
fectly fried.  When  his  complaints  of  the 
pain  were  loudest,  a  board  was  placed  be- 
tween his  feet  and  the  fire,  and  he  was  again 
commanded  to  confess;  but  this  was  taken 
away  if  he  persisted  in  his  obstinacy. 

But  I  have  no  disposition  to  dwell  on  these 
revolting  details.  It  is  more  to  my  purpose 
to  state  that  Llorente,  in  his  History  of  the 
Inquisition,  estimates  the  number  of  its  vic- 
tims in  Spain  alone,  from  1481  to  1812  (three 
hundred  and  thirty-one  years)  at  three  hun- 
dred and  forty -one  thousand  and  twenty- 
one,  of  whom  thirty-one  thousand  nine  hun- 
dred and  twelve  were  burnt  to  death !  The 
sufljerings  of  these  last  were  usually  aggra- 
vated by  every  kind  of  indignity.  The  bru- 
talizing influence  of  the  system  upon  the 
popular  mind,  is  strongly  evinced  by  the  fact, 
that  even  a  bull-fight  or  a  farce  was,  with  the 
Spaniards,  as  Dr.  Geddes  remarks,  "a  dull 
entertainment  compared  with  an  auto-da-fe.''^ 
Not  only  immense  crowds  of  the  common 
people,  but  the  nobility,  and  in  some  cases 


64  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

the  royal  family  also,  came  together  to  enjoy 
the  spectacle.  That  they  did  "  enjoy"  it,  is 
apparent  from  the  manner  in  which  it  was 
conducted.  No  sooner  had  the  executioner 
completed  his  arrangements,  and  the  Jesuits 
in  attendance,  announced  to  the  prisoners  that 
they  "left  them  to  the  devil  who  was  stand- 
ing at  their  elbow  to  receive  their  souls,'' 
than  "a  great  shout  was  raised,  and  the 
multitude  united  in  crying,  *Let  the  dogs' 
beards  be  trimmed,'  'Let  the  dogs'  beards 
be  trimmed.'  This  was  done  by  thrusting 
flaming  furze,  tied  to  the  end  of  a  long  pole 
against  their  faces ;  and  the  process  was  often 
continued  till  the  features  of  the  prisoners 
were  all  wasted  away,  and  they  could  be  no 
longer  known  by  their  looks.  The  furze  at 
the  bottom  of  the  stakes  was  then  set  on 
fire;  but  as  the  sufferers  were  raised  to  the 
height  of  ten  feet  above  the  ground,  the 
flames  seldom  reached  beyond  their  knees, 
so  that  they  were  really  roasted  and  not 
burned  to  death." — Is  it  going  too  far,  to 
say  that  the  main  actors  in  these  horrible 
barbarities,  were  more  like  fiends  than  men? 
And  yet,  they  were  the  ministers  of  religion, 
the  accredited  servants  and  representatives  of 
the  Holy  Apostolic  Church  of  Rome.     That 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  65 

Church,  it  is  true,  staggering  under  the  in- 
tolerable odium  she  has  incurred  by  these 
unparalleled  cruelties,  is  now  trying  to  make 
the  world  believe  that  the  Inquisition  was 
not   in   any  sense    an   Institution  of  the 
Church,  but  a  tribunal  of  the  civil  govern- 
ment!    This  pretence  is  worthy  of  its  paren- 
tage.     That  some  of  the  Catholic  govern- 
ments availed  themselves  of  the  Inquisition 
as  an  efiective  engine  for  extorting  money 
from  their  subjects  and  putting  obnoxious 
individuals  out  of  the  way,  is  not  denied. 
But  no  candid  man  can  read  Llorente,  or 
any  other  authentic  history  of  the   ''Holy 
Office,^'  whhout  being  convinced  that  the 
Inquisition  was  altogether  a  creature  of  the 
Hierarchy.     It  emanated  from  Rome.     The 
Inquisitors  were   appointed  at  Rome.     All 
their  rules  of  procedure  were  either  framed 
at  Rome,  or  subject  to  revision,  modification, 
and  approval  there.     To  Rome  they  were 
responsible.     From  Rome  they  received  their 
rewards.     The  plea  now  set  up  that  "the 
Inquisition   was    entirely   and   avowedly   a 
political  and  not  an  ecclesiastical  institution,'' 
is  a  wicked  and  Jesuitical  device  for  hood- 
winking Protestants  to  the  abominations  of 
Popery,  and    it    is   refuted    by   their  own 
6 


66  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

Standard  writers.  Johannes  Devoti,  e.  g. 
uses  this  decisive  language  on  the  subject, 
as  quoted  by  that  late  eloquent  and  able  de- 
fender of  Protestantism,  Dr.  John  Breckin- 
ridge, in  his  controversy  with  the  present 
popish  Bishop  of  New  York.  "  The  con- 
gregation of  Cardinals  at  Rome,  instituted  by 
the  Pope,  in  which  the  Pope  presides,  is  the 
head  of  all  Inquisitors  over  the  whole  world; 
to  it  they  all  refer  their  more  difficult  matters; 
and  its  authority  is  final.  It  is  rightly  and 
wisely  ordered,  that  the  Pope's  power  and 
office  sustain  this  institution.  For  he  is  the 
centre  of  unity  and  head  of  the  Church ;  and 
to  him  Christ  has  committed  plenary  power,  to 
feed,  teach,  rule,  and  govern  all  Christians." 
(p.  486.) 

If  it  is  still  alleged  that  the  victims  of  the 
Inquisition  were  executed  not  by  the  ecclesi- 
astics but  by  the  secular  authority,  this  also 
may  be  conceded:  but  the  concession  can 
avail  as  little  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  as  it 
would  to  the  priests  and  rulers  of  the  Jews, 
to  admit  that  it  was  not  they,  but  Pilate  who 
crucified  the  Son  of  God.  For  what  was  the 
precise  part  performed  by  the  ecclesiastics  in 
the  management  of  the  Inquisition  ?  In  the 
first  place,  as  we  have  seen,  they  derived  their 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  67 

appointments  directly  or  indirectly  from  the 
Papal  See.  The  code  under  which  they 
acted,  was  from  the  same  source.  They  de- 
termined what  should  be  regarded  as  heresy. 
They  arrested  whomsoever  they  chose.  They 
superintended  and  applied  all  the  tortures 
preliminary  to  final  condemnation  or  acquit- 
tal. They  decided  who  should  be  put  to 
death.  All  the  arrangements  for  the  burning 
of  the  condemned,  were  made  under  their 
supervision.  They  required  the  civil  magis- 
trates, by  authority  of  various  Bulls  of  the 
Popes,  to  commit  heretics  to  the  flames  with- 
in six  days  after  they,  the  Inquisitors  had 
pronounced  sentence  upon  them,  under  paiiv 
of  excommunication  and  other  censures. 
And  yet  Romanists  would  have  us  believe 
that  the  Inquisition  was  not  an  institution  of 
their  Church,  because  after  the  Inquisitors  had 
condemned  a  man  as  an  apostate  and  heretic, 
and  handed  him  over  to  the  magistrates  to 
be  put  to  death,  the  hypocritical  wretches 
were  accustomed  to  add:  "  Nevertheless  we 
earnestly  beseech  and  enjoin  the  said  secular 
arm,  to  deal  so  tenderly  and  compassionate- 
ly with  him,  as  to  prevent  the  effusion  of 
blood,  or  danger  of  death  P^  This  is  the 
argument  to  prove  that  Rome  is  guiltless  of 


68  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

the  atrocities  of  the  Inquisition!  Let  her 
have  the  full  benefit  of  it.  The  Inquisition 
itself  does  not  more  incontestably  identify  her 
with  the  prophetic  Antichrist,  by  demon- 
strating her  hatred  of  the  saints  and  her 
eagerness  to  shed  their  blood,  than  this  sup- 
posed vindication  does,  by  showing  the 
effrontery  with  which  she  can  *'  speak  lies  in 
hypocrisy." 

I  have  thus  endeavoured  to  exhibit  the 
*'^  Intolerance  of  the  Church  of  Rome." 
I  have  shown  that  she  is  essentially  and  in- 
curably intolerant  in  her  very  frame-work, 
and  her  fundamental  principles;  that  she  is 
intolerant  even  of  mental  freedom;  that  she  is 
intolerant  of  God's  holy  and  blessed  truth, 
above  every  thing  else;  that  she  insists  upon 
the  right  to  persecute  those  whom  she  re- 
gards as  heretics,  and  upon  the  obhgation  of 
all  princes  and  magistrates  to  aid  at  her  bid- 
ding in  their  subjugation  or  destruction;  and 
that  she  has  carried  out  these  principles  in 
the  actual  slaughter  of  immense  multitudes 
of  men,  for  opinion's  sake  merely,  both  in 
religious  wars  and  massacres  instigated  by 
her,  and  by  the  more  refined  and  cruel  tor- 
tures of  the   Inquisition.      Every  count  in 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  69 

this  indictment  has  been  substantiated  by 
authentic  proofs.  And  here  the  discussion 
might  with  propriety  be  arrested.  There  is, 
however,  a  sentiment  widely  diffused  among 
Protestants,  which  goes  far  to  neutrahze  such 
testimonies  as  have  now  been  preseiited,  in 
relation  to  the  intolerance  of  Popery.  This 
sentiment  is,  that  the  Church  of  Rome  has 
undergone  a  change — that  her  cruelties  be- 
long to  another  age — and  that  she  is  now  as 
humane  and  benevolent  in  her  spirit  as  any 
of  the  Protestant  churches.  This  sentiment 
must  be  briefly  examined  before  we  close. 
Its  fallacy  must,  indeed,  be  manifest  to  ail 
who  have  followed  the  train  of  argument 
by  which  we  have  reached  our  general  con- 
clusion. 

For  what  is  it  we  have  charged  upon 
Rome,  and  proved  against  her?  Not  simply 
that  she  has  in  some  specified  instances  per- 
secuted the  people  of  God,  and  made  Protest- 
ant blood  flow  like  water;  but  that  she  has 
persecuted  on  principle — that  intolerance  is 
blended  with  the  very  elements  of  her  organi- 
zation— that  wherever  she  has  the  power 
and  opportunity,  she  cannot  but  persecute, 
without  compromising  her  principles  and  be- 
traying the  trust  which,  she  asserts,  has  been 


70  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

confided  to  her.  And  here  it  is  that  her 
persecutions  differ  so  widely  from  those  of 
Protestants.  It  is  not  denied  that  Protestants 
have  been  guilty  of  persecution.  But  their 
persecutions  took  place,  for  the  most  part, 
just  after  they  threw  off  the  Papal  yoke,  and 
when  they  were  still  tainted  with  the  spirit 
in  which  they  had  been  reared.  Their  per- 
secutions also  have  been  local  and  temporary. 
And,  again,  the  persecuting  tenets  have  long 
ago  been  expunged  from  the  Protestant 
Creeds  and  Confessions:  and  true  Protestants 
with  one  accord  reprobate  as  unchristian  and 
wicked,  the  persecutions  practised  by  their 
ancestors. 

The  Roman  Church,  however,  can  vindi- 
cate her  persecutions  on  none  of  these  grounds. 
It  has  been  shown,  by  her  own  witnesses, 
that  the  right  and  even  the  duty  of  persecu- 
ting for  opmion's  sake,  enters  fundamentally 
into  her  constitution.  This  right,  let  it  be 
remembered,  she  has  never  repudiated:  as 
indeed,  how  could  she?  An  "infallible" 
church  must  be  unchangeable.  What  she 
has  claimed  once,  she  must  always  claim. 
What  she  has  been,  she  must  be.  She 
may  embrace  many  amiable  and  benevo- 
lent people  among  her  members;  but  we  do 


THE    CHURCH    OP    ROME.  71 

not  look  to  the  laity  in  a  church  where  the 
people  are  nothing  and  the  priesthood  every 
thing,  to  ascertain  the  dogmas  and  the  spirit 
of  the  system.  We  demand  that  the  same 
authority  which  emitted  the  bloody  edicts  of 
former  days,  shall  revoke  them,  and  renounce 
the  pretended  right  to  persecute  heretics.  Is 
this  an  unreasonable  requisition  ?  Are  we  to 
judge  that  Church  by  the  opinions  of  its  pri- 
vate members,  and  not  by  its  public  acts  and 
monuments?  Are  we  to  withdraw  the  charge 
of  persecution  against  her  while  her  creed 
remains  unaltered,  and  her  exterminating 
bulls  against  heretics  uncancelled,  merely  be- 
cause we  may  happen  to  know  some  very 
exemplary  Roman  Catholics,  or  because  the 
hierarchy  has,  from  its  crippled  state,  ceased 
to  persecute  for  a  season.'' 

But  this  is  not  all.  Whatever  may  be 
thought  by  Roman  Catholic  laymen,  the 
priesthood  are  never  heard  condemning  the 
persecutions  in  which  their  church  has  been 
engaged.  With  all  the  outcry  they  make, 
because  the  atrocities  she  perpetrated  a  few 
centuries  ago,  are  laid  to  her  charge  in  this 
age  of  intelligence  and  refinement,  they  are 
very  careful  not  to  censure  those  atrocities. 
If  they  believe  they  were  wrong,  why  do 


72  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

they  not  say  so?  The  fair  inference  from 
their  silence  is,  that  they  approve  of  them; 
that  they  are  prepared  to  set  their  hands 
to  every  sanguinary  bull  that  has  gone^forth 
from  the  Vatican,  and  to  justify  every  scene 
of  carnage  which  Popish  intolerance  has 
created. 

This,  I  have  said,  is  a  fair  inference  from 
the  fact  just  stated ;  but  we  are  not  left  to  in- 
fer it  merely.  The  creed  of  Pius  IV.  has 
already  been  mentioned.  That  creed,  which 
is  universally  received  by  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics of  the  present  day,  re- affirms  all  the 
persecuting  canons  of  fortner  days.  It  runs 
thus:  "I  likewise  undoubtedly  receive  and 
profess  all  other  things  delivered,  defined, 
and  declared,  by  the  sacred  canons  of  general 
councils,  and  particularly  the  Holy  Council  of 
Trent.  And  I  condemn,  reject,  and  anathe- 
matize all  things  contrary  thereto,  and  all 
heresies  which  the  church  has  condemned, 
rejected,  and  anathematized.''  Every  Ro- 
manist, then,  in  adopting  this  creed,  sanctions 
as  well  the  intolerant  principles  of  the  system, 
as  the  persecutions  to  which  they  have  led. 

Then,  again,  there  is  the  Bishop^s  oath, 
with  the  famous  clause,  "  Haereticos,  schis- 
maticos,  et  rebelles  eidem  Domino  nostro,  pro 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  73 

posse  perseqiiar  et  impugnabo.''  "  Heretics 
schismatics,  and  rebels  to  our  said  Lord, 
{the  Pope,)  with  all  my  power  I  will  perse- 
cute and  impugn.^^  Does  this  import  a 
change  in  the  spirit  and  pretensions  of  Rome? 
Let  me  quote,  as  this  subject  has  been  men- 
tioned, a  curious  piece  of  history  respecting 
it,  which  is  given  by  Mr.  Southey  in  one  of 
his  able  Essays  on  the  Cathohc  Question : — 
"  It  appears  that  a  Russian  Roman  Catholic, 
when  taking  the  oath  at  his  consecration  as 
archbishop  of  Mohilow  in  1785,  stopped  at 
this  clause,  and  refused  to  proceed.  He  was 
supported  by  the  empress  Catharine,  and  the 
court  of  Rome  found  it  expedient  to  allow 
him  to  take  the  oath  without  the  obnoxious 
clause.  But  though  the  scarlet-coloured  beast 
drew  in  its  horns  when  Catharine  would  else 
have  aimed  a  blow  at  them,  the  concession 
was  so  made  as  to  show  that  no  change  had 
taken  place  in  the  disposition  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  The  principle  that  heretics- 
were  to  be  impugned  and  persecuted,  was  not 
renounced;  though  its  avowal  was  suspend- 
ed by  indulgence,  in  an  heretical  kingdora 
where  the  sovereign,  most  properly,  would 
not  suffer  it  to  be  made.  Every  where  else- 
the  Roman  Catholic  prelates  continued,  at 
7 


74  THE  INTOLERANCE    OF 

their  consecration,  to  swear  that  they,  to  the 
utmost  of  their  power,  would  impugn  and 
persecute  heretics,  schismatics,  and  rebels  to 
their  Lord,  the  Pope.     Some  six  years  after- 
wards, the  Irish  prelates  considered  that  the 
clause  might  perhaps  stand  in  the  way  of 
the  hopes  which  they  were  then  entertaining; 
for  that  a  British  king,  a  British  minister,  a 
British  House  of  Lords,  and  a  British  House 
of  Commons,  consisting  entirely  of  heretics, 
schismatics,  and  rebels  to  the  Pope,  might 
think   it  no  very  rational  or  politic  act  to 
remove  restrictions  from  persons  who  were 
bound  by  oath  to  impugn  and  persecute  them, 
if  ever  they  had  the  power.   They  represent- 
ed this  at  Rome :  and  their  Lord  the  Pope 
then  conceded  to  them  the  same  indulgence, 
which  he  had  granted  in  the  case  of  Russia, 
but  not  without  observing  in  the  preamble  to 
the  castrated  oath,  that  '  through  the  ignor- 
ance or  dishonesty  of  some  persons,  certain 
words  (to  wit,  the  clause  complained  of)  had 
been  perverted  into  a  strange  sense.' — Per- 
verted by  ignorance   or  dishonesty!     Was 
dishonesty  ever  more  apparent  than  in  this 
preamble,  and  can  any  ignorance  be  so  great 
as  not  to  perceive  it?  ...  as  not  to  know  in 
what  sense  these  words  were  intended  by 


THE    CHURCH    OP    ROME.  75 

Pope  Hildebrand  when  he  framed  the  oath 
— in  what  sense  the  clause  has  always  been 
understood — and  in  what  sense  it  has  been 
acted  upoUf  pro  posse,  every  where  ?  Do  we 
not  know  how  Bonner  and  Gardiner  under- 
stood it?  Can  we  be  mistaken  in  what  the 
persecution  of  heretics  means,  in  the  oath  of 
a  Roman  Catholic  bishop?  Bellarmine  may 
tell  us  what  he,  as  well  as  the  heretics  in  his 
days,  who  were  unreasonable  enough  to  com- 
plain of  it,  understood  by  it. — '  Dicunt  qui- 
dem  haeretici  se  magnam  persequutionem 
ab  antichristo  pati,  quia  interdum  comburun- 
TUR  aliqui  de  eorum  numero.'  Perverted 
by  ignorance  or  dishonesty  to  a  strange  sense ! 
Why  the  words  contain  in  them  flint  and 
steel,  fire  and  faggot,  the  weapons  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew's day,  the  swords  and  halters  of 
Alva  and  Cardinal  Granville's  executioners, 
the  racks  and  engines  of  the  Inquisition."^ 

I  have  quoted  this  passage  because  this 
identical  oath,  persecuting  clause  and  all, 
has  actually  been  taken  by  every  Roman 
Catholic  prelate  in  the  United  States.  This 
was  explicitly  acknowledged  by  Bishop  Pur- 
cell  of  Ohio,  in  his  discussion  with  Mr.  Alex- 
ander Campbell,  as  may  be  found  by  refer- 

*  Southey's  Essays,  Vol.  ii.  pp.  416—418. 


• 


76  THE    INTOLERANCE    OP 

ring  to  pp.  317,  318,  346,  350,  of  the  printed 
volume  containing  the  report  of  the  debate. 
Nothing  can  be  more  palpable  than  the  in- 
compatibility between  this  oath,  and  the  oath 
of  naturalization  prescribed  by  our  Constitu- 
tion, in  which  the  individual  swears  that  he 
"  doth  absolutely  and  entirely  renounce  and 
abjure  all  allegiance  and  fidelity  to  every 
foreign  prince,  potentate,  state,  or  sovereignty 
whatever."  But  I  cite  the  oath  now,  only 
to  refute  the  common  opinion  that  Popery 
has  changed — to  show  that  the  Popish  pre- 
lates in  our  own  country  have  sworn  to  im- 
pugn and  persecute  all  heretics, /?7*o  joo^^e,  to 
the  utmost  of  their  power.  Happily  their 
"  power''  is  as  yet  too  restricted  to  render 
them  very  formidable.  Nor  will  it  be  likely 
to  increase  much,  except  through  the  apathy 
or  spurious  liberality  of  nominal  Protestants. 
Another  evidence  that  the  Roman  Church 
is  unchanged,  is  found  in  the  fact  that  she 
still  seeks  to  enforce  that  intellectual  tyran- 
ny over  her  subjects,  which  has  already  been 
described  as  one  of  the  most  revolting  forms 
of  her  intolerance.  If  she  had  changed  in 
any  thing  for  the  better,  it  would  have  been, 
in  an  age  of  light  like  the  present,  in  this: 
she  would  have  emancipated  the  minds  of 


THE    CHURCH    OP    ROME.  77 

her  members  from  the  servile  bondage  under 
which  they  have  groaned  for  centuries,  and 
given  them  access,  if  not  to  the  tree  of  Ufe,  at 
least  to  the  tree  of  knowledge.  But  in  this 
particular,  as  in  all  others,  she  has  proved 
true  to  her  principles.  Even  so  recently  as 
the  year  1819,  an  edition  of  the  Index  Libro- 
rum  Prohibitorum  was  printed  at  Rome  by 
authority.  This  Index  prohibits,  under  the 
penalties  of  the  Inquisition,  such  works  as 
Bacon  De  Augmentis  Scientiarum,  Locke 
on  the  Human  Understanding,  Cudvvorth's 
Intellectual  System,  and  Milton's  Paradise 
Lost.  Nay,  will  it  be  believed,  the  celebrated 
sentence  against  Galileo,  in  1633,  which  con- 
signed him  to  the  dungeons  of  the  Inquisition 
for  maintaining  that  the  sun  was  the  centre 
of  the  planetary  system,  and  that  the  earth 
revolved  around  it,  is  republished,  and  there- 
fore re-affirmed,  in  this  very  volume.  "The 
work  of  Algarotti,  (adds  Sir  Robert  Inglis, 
from  whom  I  quote,)  on  the  Newtonian  sys- 
tem, shares  the  same  fate:  so  that  every 
modification  of  science,  in  other  words,  every 
effort  of  free  inquiry,  every  attempt  to  disen- 
gage the  mind  from  the  trammels  of  authori- 
ty, is  alike  and  universally  consigned  to  the 
Inquisition.     Am  I  not  justified  in  saying 


78  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

that  the  Church  of  Rome  remains  unchanged, 
the  unchangeable  enemy  to  the  progress  of 
the  human  mind?" 

To  these  facts  may  be  added  an  official 
paper,  the  authenticity  of  which  is  undis- 
puted, and  which  bears  date  as  recently  as 
the  24th  of  April,  1843.  It  is  a  "  Pastoral 
Address  of  the  Bishop  of  Quito,  in  South 
America.  It  was  written  for  the  purpose  of 
informing  his  Diocese  that  the  National  Con- 
vention had,  under  his  auspices  and  at  his 
request,  adopted  an  explanatory  resolution, 
precluding  the  idea,  that  under  the  new  Con- 
stitution of  the  Republic  of  the  Equator,  re//- 
gious  toleration  would  be  allowed  to  all  de- 
nominations of  Christians.  I  shall  quote  the 
first  part  of  the  letter,  and  append  to  it  the 
very  pertinent  comments  of  two  of  the  secu- 
lar papers. 

PASTORAL  ADDRESS  OF  THE  BISHOP  OF  QUITO. 

"We,  .Dr.  Nicholas  de  Arteta,  by  the 
grace  of  God  and  of  the  Holy  Apostohc  See, 
Bishop  of  Quito — to  all  the  faitliful  Chris- 
tians of  our  Diocese;  health  and  grace  in  the 
Lord. 

"  Repletus  sum  consolatione,  superabundo 
gaudio  in  omni  tribulatione  nostra. 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME,  79 

"  My  beloved  children,  our  heart  was  full 
of  joy  at  the  zeal  which  you  have  shown  to 
preserve  intact  the  Holy  Catholic  religion 
which  we  profess,  and  has  warmly  partici- 
pated in  the  tribulation  which  you  felt  at  the 
apprehension  that  the  sixth  article  of  the  new 
constitution  would  open  the  way  for  the  in-, 
troduction  of  worship  and  the  corruption  of 
Christian  morals.  This  was  the  opinion  of 
the  theologians  and  canonists  of  the  secular 
and  regular  clergy,  whom  I  convoked  on 
Holy  Friday  on  account  of  the  pressure  of 
time,  because  the  right  of  petition  to  the  Con- 
stituent Convention  could  have  been  used 
only  the  day  following.         ^         *         * 

"  In  consequence,  the  Convention  adopted 
a  prudent  and  wise  resolution,  to  tranquillize 
our  consciences.  Yes,  beloved  diocesans, 
they  are  pleased  to  explain  the  aforesaid 
article,  by  giving  us  to  know,  that,  far  from 
protecting  toleration,  which  we  justly  feared, 
it  confirms  and  strengthens  the  law  which 
authorizes  the  prelates  to  have  cognizance 
of  causes  of  faith,  as  did  the  extinguished 
tribunal  of  the  Inquisition,  with  this  restric- 
tion only,  that  they  shall  not,  in  this  respect, 
molest  foreigners  in  their  private  belief,  while 


80  THE    INTOLERANCE    OP 

they  do  not  propagate  their  errors,  to  pre- 
vent scandal  and  seduction." 

It  is  gratifying  to  see  that  the  secular  pa- 
pers of  our  country  are  not  all  blind  to  the 
natural  tendency  of  such  an  occurrence  or 
incapable  of  deducing  from  it  a  just  conclu- 
sion. The  New  York  Express  remarks,  in 
relation  to  it,  as  follows  : 

"  As  it  is  alleged  by  Roman  Catholics  that 
their  system  has  become  less  tyrannical  and 
sanguinary,  than  it  was  some  hundred  years 
ago,  the  above  article  from  one  of  the  South 
American  Republics,  may  enable  our  readers 
to  judge  for  themselves  what  foundation 
there  is  for  it.  Here  is  a  public  declaration, 
in  an  official  document  from  the  Bishop  of 
Quito,  who,  having  convoked  the  theolo- 
gians and  canonists,  obtained  their  senti- 
ments respecting  a  provision  of  the  Consti- 
tution which  had  just  been  formed,  which 
opinion  was,  that  *  instead  oi protecting  tole- 
ration,^ which  his  reverence  says  he  justly 
feared,  *it  confirms  and  strengthens  the 
law  which  authorizes  the  prelates  to  have 
cognizance  of  causes  of  faith,  as  did  the 
extinguished  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition.^ 
That  is,  a  man  accused  of  heresy,  or  in  other 


THE    CHURCH    OP    ROME.  81 

words,  of  being  a  Protestant,  may  be  tried  by 
a  blood-thirsty  tribunal,  composed  of  charac- 
ters similar  to  those  who  belonged  to  the 
Spanish  Inquisition,  and  be  burned  at  the 
stake  at  the  will  and  pleasure  of  these 
butchers.'' 

The  Philadelphia  North  American,  a  pa- 
per which  deserves  well  of  Protestants,  for 
the  ability  and  fearlessness  with  which  it 
resists  the  political  aggressions  of  Popery,  is 
equally  explicit: 

"Now  and  then  it  happens  that  we  en 
counter  a  good  Protestant,  who  wonders  at 
the  apprehension  entertained  by  us  of  the 
extension  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith  in  the 
United  States.  Admitting,  as  no  one  can 
deny,  that  in  times  past  the  practice  of  that 
Church  was  merciless  to  all  without  her  pale, 
our  easy  friends  answer  the  argument  against 
her  spirit  drawn  from  history,  by  asserting 
that  she  is  now  changed,  reformed,  human- 
ized, christianized  with  the  age.  They 
cannot  believe  that  in  this  nineteenth  cen- 
tury it  is  possible  for  the  Church  of  Rome  to 
assert  her  supremacy  by  sword,  fire,  and 
rack,  as  she  was  wont  to  do.  They  think 
that  she  is  in  the  first  place  too  feeble,  and 


82  THE    INTOLERANCE    OP 

in  the  second,  too  wise  to  apply  brute  force 
to  change  men's  consciences. 

"  We  heartily  wish  that  existing  circum- 
stances could  sustain  this  opinion.  If  we 
thought  there  was  no  danger  to  the  State,  or 
to  the  life,  liberty  and  property  of  the  citizen 
from  the  possible  domination  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  in  this  republic,  we  should 
conceive  it  no  part  of  our  duty  as  daily  jour- 
nalists, to  take  note  of  her  creed,  discipline, 
or  practice.  But  it  is  a  fact,  beyond  the 
doubt  of  any  unprejudiced  man,  that  her  pre- 
lates and  bigoted  members  are  not  to  be 
trusted  with  power  in  any  State  which  de- 
sires civil  or  rehgious  liberty.  A  proof  in 
point  is  brought  before  us,  which  suggests 
these  remarks,  and  we  would  earnestly  call 
the  attention  of  lukewarm  Protestants  to  it." 

A  still  more  recent  exemplification  of  the 
unchanged  intolerance  and  cruelty  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  is  furnished  in  the  case  of 
Dr.  Kalley,  an  excellent  Scotch  physician 
and  minister,  residing  in  the  island  of  Ma- 
deira, who  has  recently  undergone  a  long 
imprisonment  for  no  other  crime  than  that  of 
preaching  the  gospel  to  the  natives,  and  that 
in  his  own  house  5  an  imprisonment  which 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  83 

would  probably  have  terminated  in  his  exe- 
cution, had  not  the  British  government  in- 
terposed and  obtained  his  release. 

But  testimonies  need  not  be  multiplied. 
An  enlightened  and  candid  inquirer  has  but 
to  look  abroad  upon  the  Roman  Catholic 
world  to  see  that  Popery  is  unchanged. 
Now,  as  of  old,  it  is  the  inflexible  enemy  of 
human  improvement.  Ignorance,  degra- 
dation, falsehood.  Sabbath-profanation,  the 
decay  of  pubhc  virtue,  the  general  corruption 
of  morals,  hatred  of  pure  Christianity,  and 
the  extinction  of  religious  freedom,  follow  in 
its  train,  as  naturally  as  the  corresponding 
blessings  attend  the  untrammelled  dissemi- 
nation of  the  pure  gospel  of  Christ. 

To  attempt  to  neutralize  such  proofs  as 
these,  of  the  unchanged  character  of  Popery, 
by  alleging  that  the  Church  of  Rome  is  not 
actually  persecuting  Protestants  now,  is 
chimerical  in  the  extreme.  For,  as  we  have 
seen,  this  is  true  only  in  a  partial  sense,  and 
there  is  a  very  good  reason  why  she  is  not 
persecuting  as  formerly,  on  a  larger  scale. 
Bunyan  has  interwoven  it  in  his  wonderful 
allegory.  "I  espied,"  he  says,  describing 
the  Valley  of  the  shadow  of  Death,  "  a  little 


84  THE   INTOLERANCE    OF 

before  me  a  cave,  where  two  giants,  Pope 
and  Pagan,  dwelt  in  old  times,  by  whose 
power  and  tyranny,  the  men  whose  bones, 
blood,  and  ashes,  lay  there,  were  cruelly  put 
to  death.  But  by  this  place  Christian  went 
without  much  danger,  whereat  I  somewhat 
wondered;  but  I  have  learned  since,  that 
Pagan  has  been  dead  for  many  a  day  ;  and 
as  for  the  other,  though  he  be  yet  alive,  he 
is,  by  reason  of  age,  and  alio  of  the  many 
shrewd  brushes  that  he  met  with  in  his 
younger  days,  grown  so  crazy  and  stiff  in  his 
joints,  that  he  can  now  do  little  more  than 
sit  in  his  cave's  mouth,  grinning  at  pilgrims 
as  they  go  by,  and  biting  his  nails  because 
he  cannot  come  at  them."  Had  Bunyan 
written  in  our  day,  he  would  probably  have 
represented  the  decrepit  old  giant  as  renew- 
ing his  youth,  and  secretly  preparing  to  sally 
forth  after  pilgrims,  panoplied  in  the  blood- 
stained armour  that  he  wore  of  old. 

The  Church  of  Rome,  then,  is  unchanged 
and  unchangeable.  Her  vital  principles  in- 
volve this;  facts  confirm  it;  and  the  testi- 
mony of  God  himself  substantiates  it,  with 
an  explicitness  which  leaves  nothing  further 
to  be  desired  in  the  way  of  evidence.     For 


THE    CHURCH    OP    ROME.  85 

he  distinctly  teaches  in  2  Thess.  ii.  8,  and 
in  Rev.  xviii.,  that  that  Church  instead  of 
being  reformed,  is  to  be  thoroughly  and 
awfully  DESTROYED,  and  that  until  that  pe- 
riod arrives,  she  will  remain  what  she  has 
always  been,  "the  woman  drunken  with 

THE  BLOOD  OP  THE  SAINTS,  AND  WITH  THE 
BLOOD  OP  THE  MARTYRS  OP  JeSUS."       All  the 

intolerance  we  have  charged  and  proved 
upon  her  in  former  days,  is  proved  to  belong 
to  her  still.  And  if  any  man  shall  succeed, 
as  many  charitable  persons  suppose  they 
can  do,  in  demonstrating  the  contrary,  i.  e., 
in  showing  that  she  is  not  as  intolerant  as 
she  once  was,  he  will,  by  the  same  process, 
demonstrate  her  fallibility,  and  subvert  her 
claim  to  be  considered  as  the  Church  of 
Christ.  We  have,  therefore,  not  merely  the 
testimony  of  Scripture,  of  history,  of  obser- 
vation, and  of  innumerable  Protestant  wit- 
nesses of  unimpeachable  character,  but  the 
testimony  of  the  Church  of  Rome  herself,  to 
the  point,  that  she  is  now,  and  will  be  as 
long  as  God  suffers  her  to  live,  the  same  per- 
secuting, cruel,  blood-thirsty  power  that  she 
was  three  centuries  ago. 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  there  is  one  senti- 


86  THE    INTOLERANCE    OP 

ment  which  must  commend  itself  to  every 
individual  who  has  carefully  considered  the 
testimonies  adduced  in  these  pages.  It  is 
this;  viz.,  that  it  is  the  iinperative  duty  of 
every  man  who  desires  the  welfare  of  reli- 
gion, or  the  prosperity  of  his  country,  to 
oppose,  by  all  moral  means,  the  efforts 
making  to  propagate  Romanism  in  the 
United  States. 

The  Church  of  Rome  is,  as  we  have 
shown,  radically  and  thoroughly  hostile  to 
human  improvement  and  happiness.  Its 
principles  are  subversive  both  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty.  No  country  can  be  free, 
no  people  can  enjoy  an  enlightened  prosperi- 
ty, no  man's  rights  can  be  safe,  where  its 
principles  are  carried  out.  Meek  and  gen- 
tle as  it  appears  now,  it  is  only  the  quietude 
and  the  verdure  which  grace  the  slumbering 
volcano.  The  fires  are  there  still;  and  when 
the  occasion  offers,  they  will  burst  forth  and 
renew  the  scenes  of  devastation  and  death  of 
former  years.  Let  American  Christians  pon- 
der this.  Let  our  statesmen,  our  professional 
men,  the  eduors  of  our  periodical  press,  and 
all  others  gifted  with  the  means  of  influen- 
cing their  countrymen,  inquire  if  the  fact  be 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  87 

not  as  has  been  stated.  Above  all,  let  our 
iatelligent  youth  acquaint  themselves  with 
this  colossal  system  of  falsehood  and  cruelty, 
and  prepare  to  repel  its  growing  aggressions 
upon  our  liberties. 

One  argument  which  has,  until  lately,  de- 
terred many  Protestants  from  taking  a  decid- 
ed stand  upon  this  question,  has  already  been 
examined,  and  I  think  I  may  be  allowed  to 
say,  refuted;  viz.,  the  plea  that  Popery  has 
changed.  This  plea  has  found  great  favour 
among  our  citizens.  One  reason  of  this  is, 
that  the  great  mass  of  them  have  never  seen 
Popery  as  it  exists  in  Roman  Catholic  coun- 
tries. Another  is,  that  they  have  not  gene- 
rally studied  the  polity  and  history  of  that 
Church.  And  a  third  is,  that  Popery  has 
usually  carried  itself  so  meekly  in  this  Pro- 
testant land,  that  mere  superficial  observers 
have  been  deceived  as  to  its  true  character. 
Within  the  last  few  years,  however,  the  sys- 
tem has  developed  itself  more  fully.  In  the 
efforts  made  to  exclude  the  Bible  from  our 
common  schools;  in  the  public  burning  of 
the  Scriptures;  in  the  open  pandering  to  po- 
litical parties  for  sectarian  purposes;  and  in 
various  other  measures  of  the  Papal  priest- 


8S  THE    INTOLERANCE    OP 

hood,  people  are  beginning  to  see  indications 
that  the  Popery  of  our  day  is  identical  with 
the  Popery  of  the  dark  ages.  The  plea  that 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  changed, 
therefore,  is  fast  losing  its  weight  with  intel- 
ligent Protestants. 

Others  have  remained  inactive  from  a 
feeling  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  was 
a  branch  of  the  true  Church,  and  that,  not- 
withstanding its  errors,  Christian  charity  was 
violated  by  waging  a  controversy  with  it. 

The  craft  of  Satan  in  constructing  the  sys- 
tem has  already  been  adverted  to.  If  the 
system  was  ail  heresy,  its  history  all  blood, 
or  its  adherents  all  vicious  and  cruel,  there 
would  be  no  difficulty  in  convincing  Protest- 
ants of  every  sort  that  it  was  their  duty  to 
oppose  it.  But  there  is  enough  of  truth  in 
its  theoretic  theology,  enough  of  patriotism 
and  beneficence  in  its  annals,  and  enough  of 
personal  worth  and  purity  among  its  support- 
ers, to  blind  the  eyes  of  those  who,  from 
whatever  cause,  are  not  accustomed  to  pene- 
trate beyond  the  surface  of  things.  We  need 
not,  we  ought  not  to  identify  Roman  Catho- 
lics with  all  the  abominations  of  their  church. 
We  cheerfully  concede  all  that  may  be  claim- 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  39 

ed  for  individuals  among  them  on  the  score 
of  intelhgence,  refinement,  and  virtue.  But 
beyond  this  we  cannot  go.  If  the  positions 
laid  down  in  this  discussion  have  been  estab- 
lished, the  papal  system,  as  a  system,  is  hos- 
tile alike  to  God  and  man.  It  is  antichrist  : 
i.  e.  it  is  the  great  enemy  of  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  It  has  from  the  begin- 
ning persecuted  his  truth  and  persecuted  his 
saints.  We  should  ha\re  no  more  scrupfe 
about  opposing  it,  than  we  should  about  op- 
posing Mohammedanism  or  Buddhism,  if  an 
attempt  were  made,  and  persevered  in  from 
year  to  year,  to  introduce  either  of  those  sys- 
tems into  this  country.  Romanists,  as  indi- 
viduals, are  to  be  treated  with  all  possible 
kindness,  and  their  rights  of  every  kind  re- 
spected: but  it  is  as  much  our  duty  to  resist 
by  all  moral  means  the  spread  of  their  system, 
as  it  is  to  repel  any  other  scheme  which 
makes  war  upon  human  liberty  and  happi- 
ness, and  tends  to  subvert  the  gospel  of  Christ. 
This  inference  appears  to  me  not  merely 
logical  but  unavoidable,  from  our  premises. 
If  the  Church  of  Rome  is  the  intolerant, 
blood-thirsty  organization  which  we  have 
8 


90  THE    INTOLERANCE    OF 

proved  her  to  be — if  she  is,  in  truth,  the 
scriptural  antichrist — it  is  self-evident  that  to 
abet  her  is  to  oppose  Christ,  and  that  to  re- 
fuse to  resist  her  aggressions,  is  to  refuse 
obedience  to  Christ. 

If  it  be  asked.  How  is  she  to  be  opposed? 
I  answer,  by  light  and  love — by  dissemina- 
ting truth  in  a  Christian  spirit.  Or,  to  be 
more  specific,  by  withholding  aid  from  Ro- 
nlish  churches,  schools,  colleges,  orphan  asy- 
lums, and  other  institutions — by  circulating 
the  Bible  throughout  the  land,  and  especially 
by  placing  it  in  the  hands  of  as  many  of  our 
Roman  Catholic  citizens  as  can  be  reached, 
and  using  other  kindred  means  to  instruct 
them  in  the  truth — by  resisting  all  efforts  for 
driving  the  Scriptures  from  our  common 
schools — by  carefully  teaching  our  children 
and  the  youth  in  our  Sunday  schools,  the 
character  of  Popery,  and  fortifying  them 
against  its  devices — by  enlightening  the  pub- 
lic mind  on  the  subject  of  Romanism  through 
the  pulpit,  the  press,  and  the  channels  of  so- 
cial intercourse — by  sustaining  judicious  or- 
ganizations for  the  promotion  of  the  ends 
here  contemplated — and  by  fervent  and  uni- 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ROME.  91 

ted  prayer  for  the  deliverance  of  those  who 
are  led  captive  by  the  "  man  of  sin,"  and 
for  the  prosperity  and  universal  triumph  of 
the  kingdom  of  Christ. 


APPENDIX. 


EXTRACT  FROM  THE  ADDRESS  OF   THE    AMERICAN   PROTESTANT 
ASSOCIATION,  1S43. 

But  we  must  be  allowed  to  remind  you,  that  notwith- 
standing the  modest  guise  which  that  church  puts  on, 
in  this  and  other  Protestant  countries,  no  evidence 
whatever  has  been  produced,  enianating/rom  the  Pa- 
pal See,  that  it  has  abated  iis  pretensions  or  laid  aside 
its  persecuting  tenets.  We  are  not  satisfied  with 
the  disclaimers  of  Roman  Catholic  laymen  or  the 
denials  of  Romish  priests.  We  insist  upon  a  renun- 
ciation from  the  only  authority  in  the  church  which 
has  the  ric^ht  to  make  one.  We  demand  that  the  same 
power  which  enjoined  the  persecutions  of  former  days, 
sliall  express  its  disapproval  of  them,  and  repudiate 
the  pretended  right  to  persecute  for  opinion's- sake. 
Wiien  proof  of  this  sort  is  produced,  we  may  listen 
to  the  suggestion  that  Popery  has  put  off  its  intoler- 
ance.— We  do  not,  however,  rest  here.  We  have  a 
witness  at  hand  who  will  be  deemed  both  competent 
and  credible  as  to  the  point  under  consideration.  This 
witness  is  Gregory  XVf.  the  reigning  Pope;  and  the 
document  from  which  we  quote  is  his  famous  Encyc- 
lical Letter  of  August  15th,  1S32.* 

*  This  Letter  was  published  at  the  time  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  papers  in  this  country. 


APPENDIX.  93 

"  From  that  polluted  fountain  of  indifference  flows 
that  absurd  and  erroneous  doctrine,  or  raiher  raving, 
in  favour  and  in  defence  of  *  liberty  of  conscience,'' 
for  which  most  pestilential  error,  the  course  is  opened 
by  that  entire  and  wild  liberty  of  opinion  which  is 
every  where  attempting  the  overthrow  of  civil  and 
relig-ious  institutions;  and  which  the  unblushing  im- 
pudence of  some,  has  held  forth  as  an  advantage  of 
religion.  *  *  *  From  hence  arise  these 
revolutions  in  the  minds  of  men,  hence  this  aggrava- 
ted corruption  of  youth,  hence  this  contempt  among 
the  people  of  sacred  things,  and  of  the  most  holy  in- 
stitutions and  laws;  hence,  in  one  word,  that  pest  of 
all  others  most  to  be  dreaded  in  a  State,  unbridled 
liberty  of  opinion.'^'' 

Again :  "  Hither  tends  that  worst  and  never  suffi- 
ciently to  be  execrated  and  detested  liberty  of  tJie  press, 
for  the  diffusion  of  all  manner  of  writings  which  some 
so  loudly  contend  for  and  so  actively  promote." 

And  again:  "Nor  can  we  augur  more  consoling 
consequences  to  religion  and  to  government,  from  the 
zeal  of  some  to  separate  the  Church  from  the  State, 
and  to  burst  the  bond  which  unites  the  priesthood  to 
the  empire.  For  it  is  clear  that  this  union  is  dreaded 
by  the  profane  lovers  of  liberty,  only  because  it  has 
never  failed  to  confer  prosperity  on  both." 

Here  is  documentary  evidence  of  the  highest  kind 
to  show  that  Popery  is  unchanged,  to  prove  that  the 
Popery  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  the  Popery  of 
the  sixteenth  are  the  same.  We  have  it  officially 
promulgated  by  the  present  Pope,  that  Liberty  of 
Conscience,  Liberty  of  Opinion,  the  Liberty  of  the 
Press,  and  the  Separation  of  Church  and  State, 
are  four  of  the  sorest  evils  with  which  a  nation  can 
be  cursed  I  Both  as  Protestants  and  as  American 
citizens,  we  count  the  rights  which  are  here  assailed 
as  among  our  dearest  franchises  :  and  we  cannot  look 
on  in  silence  and  see  the  craft  and  power  of  Rome 
systematically  and  insidiously  employed  to  subvert 
them.     We  deplore  the  necessity  which  calls  for  the 


94  APPENDIX. 

measure;  but  believing'  as  we  do  that  patriotism  and 
Christianity  demand  it,  we  have  united,  and  we  invite 
all  who  love  our  institutions  to  unite  with  us  in  repel- 
ling the  aggressions  of  the  Papal  Hierarchy. 

Our  contest  is  not  with  the  Roman  Catholics  as 
individuals.  We  would  not,  if  we  could,  abridge 
their  rights  and  privileges  in  the  slightest  degree. 
We  abhor  persecution  for  opinion's  sake  under  every 
form,  and  we  recognize  their  right  to  the  same  free- 
dom of  thought  and  action  that  we  claim  for  ourselves. 
We  leave  it  to  the  Pope  to  denounce  '  liberty  of 
opinion,'  '  liberty  of  conscience,'  and  the  '  liberty  of 
the  press,'  as  hostile  to  human  happiness  and  danger- 
ous to  the  welfare  of  States.  It  is  because  the  system 
is  thus,  by  the  accredited  exposition  of  its  'infallible' 
Head,  at  war  with  our  most  sacred  rights  and  inter- 
ests, that  we  feel  bound  to  oppose  it.  Whatever  vir- 
tues may  adorn  the  characters  of  individuals  in  that 
Sect,  we  appeal  to  the  whole  history  of  the  Romish 
Church,  in  proof  of  the  position,  that  the  principles 
assumed  in  the  recent  Encyclical  Letter  have  been 
actually  carriec^  out  wherever  Rome  has  had  thepotoer 
to  enforce  them.  So  that  in  resisting  the  efforts  now 
making  to  establish  this  system  among  us,  we  are  in- 
fluenced by  no  love  of  controversy,  by  no  personal 
antipathies,  by  no  sectarian  or  party  ends,  but  by  a 
grave  and  imperative  sense  of  duty  to  our  country,  to 
posterity,  and  to  God. 

Reiterating  the  sentiment  that  persecution  is  as 
much  at  variance  with  all  our  Protestant  and  Ameri- 
can feelings  as  it  is  coincident  with  the  genius  and 
spirit  of  Popery,  we  respectfully  remind  our  country- 
men that  it  is  opposition  to  Popery,  which  has  secured 
to  them  an  open  Bible  and  the  privilege  of  confessing 
their  sins  to  God  instead  of  a  priest.  We  remind 
them  that  opposition  to  Popery  has  created  the  differ- 
ence between  our  free,  happy,  and  prosperous  Repub- 
lic, and  the  States  of  South  America,  which  seem 
doomed  to  perpetual  anarchy  and  depression.  We 
remind  them  that  opposition  to  Popery  has  given  to 


APPENDIX.  95 

Europe  all  that  she  enjoys  of  civil  and  religious  liber- 
ty :  that  the  progress  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  the 
mitigation  of  social  evils,  the  diffusion  of  knowledge, 
the  right  understanding  and  observance  of  the  recip- 
rocal duties  of  princes  and, subjects,  magistrates  and 
people,  and  the  improvement  of  mankind  in  rational 
and  social  happiness,  have  for  the  last  three  centuries, 
gone  hand  in  hand  with  opposition  to  Popery :  and 
that  just  in  proportion  as  the  opposition  to  Popery  has 
been  relaxed  in  any  Protestant  country,  superstition 
and  infidelity  have  increased,  vice  has  abounded,  ig- 
norance and  discontent  have  prevailed  among  the 
people,  and  every  great  national  interest  has  dete- 
riorated. 

If  confirmation  of  these  statements  be  required, 
we  have  it  in  the  present  relative  condition  of  the 
principal  Protestant  and  Roman  Catholic  countries. 
Compare  Italy  with  Prussia:  compare  Spain  with 
England  :  compare  Mexico  and  the  South  American 
Republics  with  the  United  States.  The  superiority 
of  the  Protestant  countries  is  known  and  read  of  all 
men.  To  what  is  it  owing?  Not  to  physical  causes 
certainly:  for  in  these  the  Roman  Catholic  countries 
have  the  advantage.  Look  at  Spain,  for  example — 
luxuriant,  beautiful  Spain,  with  her  vine-clad  hills 
and  her  genial  climate,  the  very  garden  of  Europe. 
There  was  a  time  (under  the  Moorish  dynasty,  and 
immediately  after  its  downfall)  when  her  name  was 
a  tower  of  strength  among  the  nations ;  now,  the 
decrepitude  of  a  premiture  dotage  is  upon  her,  and 
with  the  little  strength  that  remains  to  her,  she  is 
tearing  out  her  own  vitals.  What  has  turned  this 
Eden  into  an  Aceldama  1  What  has  made  that  once 
noble  race,  to  such  an  extent,  a  nation  of  sensualists 
and  gladiators  ?  What  has  spread  the  pall  of  death  over 
all  that  was  lovely,  and  generous,  and  refined,  in  that 
land  of  song  1  The  answer  may  be  given  in  one  word. 
Popery.  Popery  persecuted  the  Reformation  out  of 
Spain,  as  it  did  out  of  Italy.  It  summoned  to  its  aid 
the  chains  and  dungeons,  the  racks  and  faggots  of  the 


96  APPENDIX. 

Inquisition,  and,  with  fiendish  fury,  drove  it  from  her 
soil.  The  martyr-blood  which  was  then  shed,  has 
not  yet  ceased  to  cry  to  heaven  for  vengeance.  Spain 
permitted  Popery  to  rob  her  of  the  pure  Christianity 
which  v/as  offered  her  ;  a,nd  God  gave  her  up  to  serve 
the  master  she  had  chosen.  There,  for  three  hundred 
years  he  has  swayed  an  undisputed  sceptre.  And 
the  result  is  before  us.  In  climate  and  soil,  Spain  is 
unchanged ;  for  these  it  was  beyond  the  spoiler's 
power  to  blast.  Every  thing  else  he  has  blighted  and 
cursed, — every  thing  in  her  morals,  every  thing  in 
her  thrift  and  industry,  every  thing  in  her  literature, 
every  thing  in  her  laws, — his  curse  is  in  her  cities 
and  in  her  hamlets,  in  her  cottages  and  in  her  palaces, 
— indeed,  it  might  be  supposed  by  one  ignorant  of 
her  history,  that  Spain,  instead  of  being  the  most  loyal 
of  all  lands  to  the  Papal  See,  was  peopled  with  arch- 
heretics,  for  whose  impieties  all  the  curses  of  the 
"  greater  excommunication"  had  been  descending 
upon  her  for  three  centuries.  And  the  history  of 
Spain  is  the  history  of  all  other  Papal  lands.  Ignor- 
ance and  superstition,  social  degradation  and  political 
oppression,  follow  in  the  train  of  Popery  as  naturally 
as  death  follows  the  plague.  The  nation  which  sur- 
renders itself  to  its  control,  is  a  doomed  nation.  Its 
embrace  is  like  the  embrace  of  that  celebrated  image 
of  the  Virgin,  in  the  Inquisition,  which  clasped  the 
wretched  victim  in  its  arms,  and,  folding  him  to  its 
breast,  transfixed  him  with  a  thousand  nails  at  once. 


THE    END. 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


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